Knights of the Old Republic II: A Very Unauthorized Rewrite
by 500 Metric Tonnes of Palladium
Summary: <html><head></head>"The Force has a sense of humour, but it is as black as the depths of space." A controlled demolition of KotOR II canon...a story of betrayal, war, redemption, love, madness, and heavy metal. AU. LSM Exile/Handmaiden.</html>
1. The Lost Child

**Author's Notes**

_Welcome to the second installment of my controlled demolition of _Knights of the Old Republic._ As with the previous story, while this fic loosely follows the canon events, there will be many substantial deviations therefrom. Naturally, you will want to have read the first _Knights of the Old Republic: A Very Unauthorized Rewrite _installment prior to this one, otherwise many things in this story will not make sense._

_Before we begin, I should offer this warning: this story will be significantly darker and more serious than the first. There will still be more humourous moments than in canon, but this is probably as close as I will ever get to writing a "serious" story._

_And if anyone imagine needs help imagining what the Exile's speaking voice sounds like...think Garrus from _Mass Effect_ combined with __Jack Sparrow_ _from _Pirates of the Caribbean_._

_Lastly, I've always thought songfics were a rather silly idea, not to mention against this site's rules. That said, below is a list of songs that either inspired bits of this story, or that I found thematically relevant._

_"The End" - The Doors (This is quite possibly THE theme to this story. You might remember it as the opening music to the film _Apocalypse Now_)_

_"After All (The Dead)" - Black Sabbath_

_"Sins of the Father" - Black Sabbath_

_"Lady Evil" - Black Sabbath_

_"Liar" - Motörhead_

_"Voices From The War" - Motörhead_

_"Death Machine" - Motörhead_

_"Times Does Not Heal" - Dark Angel_

_"The Last in Line" - Dio_

_"Bible Black" - Heaven & Hell_

* * *

><p>Prologue – The Lost Child<p>

"_Awaken._"

Pain. That was all he could feel. Searing, burning, unbearable pain. Pain in every part of his body. Pain that made rational thought all but impossible.

Kiven took a sharp breath, inhaling a scent that was vaguely reminiscent of alcohol. He groped about the floor, which was slick with moisture and covered in large pieces of broken glass.

One word came to his mind: _vodka._ Specifically, how much needed a bottle of it right now. It was a rather pathetic reflection of how wrong his life had gone that this was the first thought that sprang into his head.

They hadn't called him the "Drunken Jedi" for nothing.

He tried to move, but his present agony was so great he could do nothing except lie curled up in a ball on the cold metal floor. With no clue where he was or what had happened to him, he tried think of the last thing he could remember. But the overwhelming pain he was in made even the simplest of thoughts difficult.

Slowly, it came back to him. He had been lying in his cave on Hoth, the world that had been his home for...well, how many years _had_ it been, anyway? Didn't matter. He recalled bleeding rather profusely after a wampa had taken a swipe at him. How had he survived?

The answer was obvious: he _hadn't._ He was dead, and this was hell.

He took another deep breath and realised that what he was smelling wasn't alcohol, but kolto, and the floor around him was drenched in it. Kiven tilted his head up slightly, and though his vision was all a blur, he could make out a shattered kolto tank above him. How had he broken free? Even on his best day he would never have possessed the strength to break glass of that thickness, and he certainly didn't have the strength to do so now.

Kiven tried to get up, only to be overcome with pain once again and fall back to the floor. His wounds must not have healed completely, judging by the terrible ache on his left side where the wampa had clawed him. There was a stabbing pain in his lower back, too – the result of a shrapnel wound he'd suffered in the Mandalorian Wars. It had never healed properly – the hard luck of a man who had been exiled before he could receive proper medical care. But at least that was a pain he was familiar with. This new pain felt like his bones had become daggers and were now piercing into his flesh.

He didn't know how long he lay there on the floor waiting for the pain to subside, but when it finally became bearable he slowly go to his feet. He so weak that even this simple action taxed him to the utmost. Kiven had never had much in the way of physical strength, and his years on Hoth had likely not done much to remedy that.

His head still spinning, he glanced about his surroundings. There were a number of kolto tanks in the room, all of which were occupied. Each had a small monitor attached that displayed the occupant's vital signs, and to Kiven's horror he saw that every monitor was indicating a flatline.

_They're all dead...they're all dead except me..._It was a depressingly familiar situation.

He suddenly felt chilly, and he realised that he was wearing nothing but his underwear. As one who despised being in any state of undress, Kiven immediately began looking around for something to put on. A second realisation struck him that he was missing something else of vital importance – his foster-father's pendant. He grabbed his neck and felt that it was gone, and this brought him into a state of acute distress as the pendant was the only thing he had left of his foster-father. It symbolised the one part of his life that wasn't complete rubbish, and he would endure any hardship or difficulty for the sake of retrieving it.

The kolto chamber was deathly silent, the only noise being a faint gurgling from the tanks behind him. He took one step forward, his legs shaking almost uncontrollably, and gradually made his way to the door. Grife, he must have looked terrible, he thought. Finding food on Hoth had become increasingly difficult over the past few months, and by this point his body was just skin and bones. Combined the substantial amount of facial hair he'd grown during his period of isolation, he would not have been offended if someone were to liken him to some crazy homeless man from the slums of Nar Shaddaa.

_That's because you _are_ a crazy homeless man from the slums of Nar Shaddaa_ he told himself. His life as a Jedi had been but a fleeting transition from one state of destitution to another.

The door ahead opened with a loud _hiss,_ making him jump. Beyond was a dark hallway, illuminated only by strips of lights along the floor. To his left was a room that looked to be an infirmary, and Kiven's first thought was that there had to be some anaesthetics stashed somewhere inside. The pain from his partially-healed wound was growing worse with every step he took until it felt as though he were on fire.

He stopped to catch his breath before walking into the medbay, trying in vain to quell his body's trembling. After taking a cautious step into the infirmary, he tried calling out to someone, but his voice was only a hoarse whisper.

Like in the hallway, the only illumination in the medbay was by the meagre emergency lighting. That meant main power was off-line, Kiven reckoned, but just what sort of place was this? A starship? Some planetside base? And more importantly, how had he wound up here? Someone must have rescued him from certain death on Hoth and brought him here, though he didn't believe for a second that they had any sort of altruistic motive.

When his eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw that every one of the beds in the infirmary was occupied. Like the kolto tanks, each bed had a readout displaying the patient's vital signs. And as before, every one indicated an ECG flatline.

These unfortunate souls were all dressed in blue and brown uniforms, with a logo Kiven did not recognise on their sleeves. But just then he noticed that one of the bodies was not like the others. A closer look like revealed that it was an elderly woman dressed in a simple brown robe, who bore no obvious signs of injury or trauma.

His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden chill. Still acutely aware of his state of undress, Kiven began looking about for something to put on. For a moment he considered taking the clothes from one of the bodies, but the idea of stripping a corpse of its attire was a bit too grotesque for him to bear.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw some of his possessions lying against the wall in the medical officer's office. He limped through the medbay and into the office, hoping desperately that his foster-father's pendant was among them.

During his time on Hoth, he had killed a wampa and used its fur to fashion a coat, a coat which someone had carelessly tossed in a heap along with the rest of his things. He picked up the garment and, to his immense relief, found that his pendant was stuffed into one of the pockets. The Jedi had always given him a hard time about it, believing it to be an indication of an "unnecessary" attachment to his foster-father. But Kiven had never been very good at following the precepts of the Jedi Order, for the simple reason that most of them were utterly asinine.

He clipped the pendant around his neck and put on the heavy wampa fur coat. It would likely be too hot for this environment, but it was far preferable to running through the halls in naught but his underwear.

Next to his coat was his weapon, a Sikka Vinnlight 7.62mm bolt-action rifle. It was hand-made on Eshan, and despite such weapons being regarded as exceedingly primitive by the majority of the galaxy, its ruggedness and simplicity had been precisely what he needed on a world like Hoth. Kiven had spent almost of his money on the weapon, and the remainder had gone into the ship he took to that icy world. The bucket of bolts had barely survived the journey, but that was of no concern as he never intended to leave Hoth anyway.

Kiven took the rifle in his and lifted it up, its weight bringing a measure of reassurance. Regardless of what one thought about kinetic weapons, no one could dispute the quality of its craftsmanship. There was an unspoken but widely-understood rule that one should _never_ refer to an Echani firearm as a mere "slugthrower" any more than one would call a Jedi's lightsaber a "glowstick."

On that thought, he wondered what had become of his old lightsaber. There was no need to wonder, because Kiven was almost one hundred percent certain of where it was, or more specifically, which individual possessed it. But he didn't want to think about this particular person right now, although he allowed himself the satisfying mental image of a high-speed encounter between her smug, sanctimonious face and the butt of his rifle.

He looked into his pocket to see how much ammunition he had left. Twelve rounds, plus whatever was left in the magazine.

By his rifle was his beaten and battered datapad. He picked up and tried switching it on, but the screen remained blank. Either the power cell was drained or the datapad was broken. He shoved it into his coat's other pocket, which held a pair of strange blue crystals he found near a geothermal vent on Hoth. Thinking back, Kiven couldn't remember why he had kept them other than the fact that they looked pretty. Not that he'd been in his right mind at that time. A combination of malnourishment and total isolation hadn't exactly done wonders for his mental health.

Despite the power failure, the medical officer's computer terminal was still active. Thinking it would help shed some light on his current predicament, Kiven began moving towards the desk. This meant a brief-but-terrifying struggle with the one object he loved and loathed with equal measure:

The chair.

Like everyone else, he never used to pay any attention at all to this humble bit of furniture. That was before the Mandalorian Wars, however. Before a frag mine had gone off just a little too close to his position. Before a piece of searing metal had torn through his spine. Before the simple act of sitting down and standing up had become an arduous and painful ordeal.

Yet while getting in and out of chairs was an agonising experience, a chair provided relief from the pain of having to stand upright for any length of time. And so Kiven positioned himself between the desk and the chair and began his well-rehearsed ritual. He began by grabbing the arms of the chair and then slowly lowering himself. This part was a balancing act – too fast, and it would hurt too much; too slow, and it would only serve to draw out the experience.

He was so weak, however, that he was unable to support his weight with his hands and fell backwards into the chair, sending a jolt of pain up his spine.

After letting out a few curse words and waiting for the hurting to subside, he began scrolling through the computer terminal's menu system, finding himself to be rather clumsy at the whole business due to the uncontrollable shaking of his hands.

According to the terminal's chrono, seven years had passed since he had departed for Hoth. It certainly did not feel as though that much time had passed, and that he had survived that long was truly amazing. Kiven hadn't expected to live beyond the first year.

After fumbling through the menus for a minute or so, he finally found the audio logs of the chief medical officer. The latest entry had been just earlier this day, and together with the half-empty cup of caffa on the desk, it suggested that some emergency had arisen that had forced a sudden evacuation.

He played back a log entry titled "Patient Evaluation" that was dated several days ago, and a woman's voice came through the terminal's speakers.

"_Chief medical officer's log, Primeday, 7__th__ month, year 1049, __documenting the initial examination of the patients recovered from the freighter. __The first p__atient is male, approximately in his late twenties to early thirties. No source of identification was found in his personal belongings, though the damaged datapad __in his possessions __might provide additional information __after performing a data recovery procedure__. In addition to the lacerations in his lower abdomen, the patient displays obvious signs of severe malnutrition. A cursory internal scan revealed trauma to the lower spinal column along with __a case of __dilated cardiomyopathy. To be honest, I'm not sure how __this man__ is still alive._"

"I'm not sure, either," he muttered.

The log continued. "_The second patient is an elderly woman, deceased. Cause of death is unknown. The patient appears to be in generally good health for her age, and there are no signs of injury beyond a few contusions on the arms and legs. As with the other patient recovered from the freighter, there was nothing on her that provided any sort of identification._"

So he had been on a ship with that old woman, and apparently the two of them had been the sole passengers. Since he had no memory of it, Kiven assumed that he had either been unconscious or in stasis during that time. He starting playing back the subsequent log entry.

"_Chief medical officer's log, __Centaxday__, 7__th__ month, year 1049. __There's word amongst the miner__s__ that the man we found on that ship is a Jedi. That __might__ explain __how__ he's still alive, but I have my doubts. __It might be unprofessional to say so, but he looks less like a Jedi and more like some crazy homeless man from the slums of __Nar Shaddaa. __A blood test __did not indicate the presence of__ midichlorians, though the patient's l__eukocyte count was very low and eosinophils were almost non-existent._"

Kiven nearly spat in disgust. "What kind of doctor are you?" The Jedi could be forgiven for believing pseudo-scientific rubbish like midichlorians, but a medical professional? He brought up the last log entry.

"_Chief medical officer's log, __Centaxday__, 7__th__ month, year 1049. __We've got three more wounded in the infirmary, all claiming to have __been "attacked" by the mining droids. Apparently, a malfunction in the droids' sensors caused them to mistake the mining personnel for an ore seam. I wish I could say that this is an isolated isolated, but this is just one in a long string of similar 'accidents' that have occurred over the past few days. Since all this started right after we found that ship, it must have something to do with it, though I have no idea what._"

The recording was interrupted by the sound of a loud explosion, immediately followed by the wailing of klaxons.

"_What the hell was that? __I'm going to-_"

The log ended up abruptly. As comfortable as this chair was, Kiven knew he would accomplish nothing by sitting here, and so he began the long, painful process of standing up. Fifteen seconds and several expletives later, he was once again on his feet.

Since the logs mentioned miners, this was obviously some kind of mining ship or facility. That left the question of why he had been brought here after being taken from Hoth. Perhaps the ship was he on lacked proper medical facilities? He'd have to look elsewhere for answers.

Kiven walked out of the office, only for the pain on his left side to reassert itself with a vengeance. It nearly brought him to his knees, and he started looking around frantically for some sort of supply cabinet in the hopes there were painkillers inside. A few seconds later he spied one at the far end of the infirmary.

Groaning all the while, he moved between the infirmary beds to the supply cabinet. Bracing himself against the counter, he swung the door open and began clumsily rifling through the contents, desperate to quell the increasingly intolerable pain.

After a few second of searching, he found a jet injector with a label indicating it contained morphine. That would surely dull the pain in a hurry, yet Kiven found himself hesitating. After his exile from the Jedi Order he had found himself addicted to painkillers and sleeping pills, the only means he had of keeping the pain of his back injury at bay and driving away the bad dreams that plagued his sleep.

And atop all of that, of course, there was the slight issue of his drinking problem. But what other comfort was left to a man with no home, no family, and whose only friend had been a humble utility droid?

_Whatever happened to T3-M4, anyway?_ Parting with the little droid had been one of the hardest things he had ever done, but there was no way he was going to let it accompany him to a world like Hoth. Besides, he had needed T3 to deliver his final message to the galaxy, instructing the droid to wait at least two years before transmitting it in the hopes it would make it difficult for anyone to find him. Evidently, it had not been enough.

Pushing that thought out of his mind, he discharged the injector's content into his arm, and short while later a soothing narcotic calm washed over him.

"Stealing drugs, are we?"

Kiven spun around and recoiled in fright at what he saw before him. The old woman on the slab was still alive, despite all evidence to the contrary, and now she stood facing him. How was this possible? Was she some sort of undead? No, that was silly. Was that injector filled with some drug other than morphine, and this was some hallucination? Not likely. There _was, _however, a way an individual could put himself into a trance so deep that he would appear dead to all outside observers.

_But the only way she could do that was if she were-_

He acted before finishing the thought, levelling the rifle squarely at the old woman's chest. "Who...who are you? Stay back!" His was was weak and quavering, and would have been unable to convince even a gizka urinating on his leg to back off. "You...I thought you were dead..."

"Close to death, perhaps; closer than I'd like. You have the reek of kolto about you...or is that alcohol, and you have been living up to your reputation?"

"Who are you?" he asked again. "Just...just stay back!" he added when she took a step towards him. "I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I have to!" Kiven's finger ran across the edge of the trigger. A 7.62mm round, full metal jacket...it would go right through her and probably through the next couple of bulkheads as well.

"Calm yourself, Exile. I am Kreia, your rescuer, as you are mine. Tell me, what is the last thing you recall?"

She wore her hood in a such way that it obscured her eyes, and her voice was about as warm and inviting as a bucket of ice water dumped on his head. Kiven kept his rifle trained on her. Everything this woman felt wrong. On Nar Shaddaa, one learned very quickly how to tell who was a threat and who wasn't, and his instincts were telling him that Kreia belonged firmly in the former category.

"Just being on Hoth, that's all."

"So that is the world where you chose to hide yourself. But not well enough, it seems. You were taken from that planet in a state near death-"

"A wampa took a swipe at me," he blurted out. Now that his memory was a little less foggy, he asked himself why that wampa had attacked him. The two of them had come to a sort of unspoken agreement that they would leave each other alone – he would stay in his cave, the wampa would stay in his. Maybe, after some time, they would become like good neighbours, or perhaps even friends...

_Wait,_ he thought, _w__as I seriously thinking that a bloody _wampa_ could be my friend? I guess I really had gone crazy..._

"You were taken to a Republic ship, the _Harbinger. _It was attacked, and is no more. You were the only survivor, no doubt a result of your training as a Je-"

"Don't you call me that!" he snapped, anger surging into his heart. "Don't you_ ever_ call me that! That part of my life is _over._" Kiven tightened his grip on the rifle. "You're not with the Jedi, are you? 'Cause if you are, then you can just walk straight out that door and as far away from me as possible!

His outburst clearly annoyed Kreia. "I see your years in isolation have worn on your sanity. But keep your past, and let us focus on the present. The ship in which we arrived is still in this place, but I'm afraid it is much too damaged for our use. But I believe the administrator of this facility owns a vessel that will suit our purposes. We should find it and leave this place. We were attacked once, and our enemies will doubtlessly make another attempt shortly. They will find us easy prey in our present state; I suppose it is too much to assume that you still possess some command of the Force?"

Even the mere utterance of that word was enough to put him even more on edge. Kiven wanted nothing more than for this decrepit hag to just _go away. _"No, I don't. The Jedi Council, they...they cut me off from the Force."

"Is that the lie you have been telling others? The Force shines from you a beacon in the dark, Exile. You can no more conceal it than you can the light of the sun."

It was true that he had not spoken the truth, and that Kreia had seen through it proved beyond a doubt that she was a Force-sensitive. But he had no desire whatsoever to carry on a conversation regarding his Force abilities.

"I don't want to talk about that. I...I just want to get out of here." And once he away from this place, his only wish was go to back to his cave on Hoth. It was his home, his shelter...a shelter he had made for his own good, and the good of the galaxy. He started walking towards the exit. "There's got to be someone still alive in this place..."

Kreia sat down cross-legged on the floor. "I must stay here and recover my strength." She spoke these words in such a way as to make it clear that not only would she _not_ be coming with him, but that the very idea that he should need her help was beneath contempt. And that was perfectly all right with him, as he was eager to be free of this woman's presence.

Thanks to the morphine, Kiven was able to move about without being doubled over in pain. "And by the way," he said just before he left the infirmary, "it was kolto, not alcohol." He took a few more steps, than stopped again. "But...you wouldn't happen to know where I can find some vodka around here, do you?"

Kreia looked back at him with a disapproving scowl.


	2. All Gone to Hell

Chapter 2 – All Gone to Hell

* * *

><p>If there was one thing the Mandalorian Wars had taught Kiven, it was that he didn't belong within a thousand kilometres of a combat situation. He had no stomach at all for violence and bloodshed, and his ability to fight with an opponent could charitably be described as a whole lot of hapless flailing about, followed by dying. Give him a lightsaber, and he was more of a danger to himself than his enemies...a fact attested to by the two missing fingertips on his left hand.<p>

But he would have thought himself a fool if he had learned only one thing from the war. No, Kiven had learned many things. Like how there was a good chance you'd never see the face of the one who killed you. Like how words such as "duty" and "honour" blew away like so much dust in the wind once things started exploding around you. Like how every soldier had his story.

As he crept through the dark, his thoughts drifted to a wounded Republic soldier he'd encountered the first day after joining the fight. The man's injuries were ghastly – both his legs had been blown off by a mine – but the man seemed happy, almost ecstatic. "Now I get to go home and see my daughter," he had said. The same day, Kiven had come across soldiers casually discussing how they might "accidentally" wound themselves so that they could be sent away from the front. In his stupidity and naivete, he had labelled them cowards in his mind. It was obvious to Kiven then that the Mandalorians were a menace that had to be stopped. In the words of the famous Echani general Yusanis, they were "an ambitious people, always ready to encroach on their neighbours without a spark of good faith." How could people – soldiers on the front lines, no less – turn away from this manifest threat?

One of the lights sparked above his head, making him jump. The hallway ahead was dark, and he could barely see but a few metres ahead of him. Ahead of him was suffocating blackness, and behind him was Kreia in the medbay. Both were equally uninviting.

Once more his thoughts went back to the war. The only reason he'd thought of those men as cowards was because he hadn't learned the lesson taught to him by his foster-father. Ruslan had served in the military during the Exar Kun War, only to become a deserter. Kiven had asked him innocently if he had run away because he was scared. That question had made him angry, the only time he had ever seen Ruslan get mad. "I never ran away from a fight," he had told him. "Our superiors were ordering us to do these things...these terrible, horrible things that I just couldn't be a part of any more. So I deserted." Ruslan had given no specifics of what had happened, and Kiven knew better than to ask. He should have remembered those words before he'd condemned those soldiers. War was always glorious and just when one had no experience of it.

He quickened his pace. Kreia was right about one thing...he needed to put aside his past and keep his mind in the present. But old habits died hard. Living in a cave on Hoth, with an entire planet all to himself and where every day blended into the next, what else was there for him to do but ruminate endlessly on the past?

Something was moving up ahead. The sound was faint, but growing louder. _Ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk... _

He felt his pulse quicken, followed by a sudden pain in his chest. With his weak heart, too much strain could send him into cardiac arrest. A physician had once told him jokingly that the only strenuous physical activity he should engage in was making love to a beautiful woman. Kiven hadn't found that joke funny, and it definitely wasn't funny after what had happened the following day...

_No! Now isn't the time to think about that,_ he told himself. Not when something terrifying was rapidly approaching.

_K__a-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk..._

He took cover in an alcove, peering out every few seconds in the hopes of catching a glimpse of his assailant.

_KA-THUNK, KA-THUNK, KA-THUNK, KA-THUNK, KA-THUNK._

Then he saw it, a flash of metal in the darkness, illuminated briefly by a sparking wire. When it came into the light, Kiven saw that it was a mining droid, though in his eyes in looked less like a droid and more like some hideous mechanical spider. Its "arms," designed for pulverising rock, were smeared with blood, having pounded a good number of miners into a fine paste. When its sensors picked up Kiven hiding in the alcove, it decided to do the same thing to him.

He raised his gun to his shoulder and squeezed the trigger. The muzzle report was deafening in the narrow hall, and in his weakened state the kickback nearly knocked the rifle out of his hands. Yet his aim was true, and the full metal jacket round easily penetrated the droid's plating.

That was not enough to disable it, and after a second's pause the droid came charging at him once more, making a horrid screeching sound.

Kiven grabbed the bolt handle and cycled the next round into the chamber. The droid was too close to aim through the rangefinder, so he shot from the hip.

The bullet tore through the droid's brain, causing it to thrash about wildly before collapsing in a heap. Lubricating oil flowed from the bullet holes like blood, and every so often one of the droid's limbs which twitch spasmodically.

Once more the hall was silent. When Kiven cycled another round, the _ping_ of the spent cartridge hitting the floor sounded positively deafening.

Firearms were many things, but subtlety was not one of their qualities. The sound of his gunshots had surely alerted everyone and everything on this level to his presence.

He crept forward into the darkness, and no sooner had it enveloped him than Kiven nearly tripped over a piece of debris. Or was it? It felt a bit too soft to be debris. He reached down groped around his feet, only to wind up grasping someone's cold, dead hand.

The hallway flights flickered to life for a split second. Long enough for him to see that the corridor with filled with corpses.

_Bodies __burning in the fields..._

Kiven leaned against the, took a deep breath, and focussed on the dim light at the end of the corridor. He could feel the dreaded memories of Dxun welling up from the dark corners of mind, ready to claw their way back into the light. They were like sleeping kath hounds, easily roused at the slightest provocation.

He had to keep moving. There was no way he'd survive if he had another one of his "spells." Kiven could never remember what happened during his blackouts, but from what others had told him he would throw things like a madman and scream words of war and mayhem. Just one more reason why he belonged on Hoth.

The corridor ended in what looked to be a security checkpoint. A dead body was slumped over a console that was still active, and for a second Kiven thought that the man must have been attacked with a lightsaber, judging from his wounds. Yet the cauterised gashes were too shallow, suggesting that a cutting torch or mining laser had been used instead.

He carefully slid the body off the console and lowered it to the ground. The light from the console illuminated a poster on the wall behind that read '_Millions of people are willing to do your job. What makes you so special?'_

Kiven blinked. Was that supposed to be their way of motivating employees? What sort of place _was_ this?

He began working through the security console's menus, looking for any clues as to what happened to this facility. From what he could gather, an emergency lockdown had been automatically initiated, though there was no indication as to the cause. After some further searching, he found a single log entry from the security officer and began playing it back.

"_This is the personal audio log of Saaj Tarkin, chief security officer for the Peragus Mining Facility._"

So now he had name for his location, though this revelation only further muddied the waters. If he recalled galactic cartography correctly, Peragus was on the opposite side of the galaxy from Hoth. Just where had they been taking him? And more importantly, who were "they?"

"_I am recording this log because I am frustrated beyond belief at the level of incompetence I have to deal with on a daily basis. I don't know where HR is getting these people, but the latest hires were all a bunch of idiots! They must have slept through safety __orientation, because they can't seem to get it through their ferrocrete skulls that Per__a__gian fuel EXPLODES! __Just yesterday we caught three of them carrying blaster rifles into the mining tunnels. We then did a search of all employee lockers and found at __least __two dozen more prohibited weapons! A single shot from any of them could have ignited a fuel deposit, __possibly setting off a chain reaction and sending this entire facility up in smoke! __We even found a vibrosaw in one of the miner's footlockers! Why would you even bring something like that aboard? This is a mining facility, not a logging operation! __I'm going to ask the administrator for the authority to sack anyone I find violating our weapons policy. It's the only way we can keep this place from getting blown to pieces._"

There were no other personal logs, although there was a recording of a transmission between the security officer and someone in maintenance. Kiven wondered why it had been recorded, and he guessed that the administrator enjoyed spying on his employees.

Maybe he had been wrong. Maybe the disaster that had befallen the Peragus Mining Facility was not due to his presence, but simple bad management. Both seemed equally plausible at this point.

He began playing back the recording, which started with a burst of static. "..._contact whatever scumbags you bought these droids from and demand a refund!_"

"_I'm sorry sir, but this shouldn't be happening. It's like their behaviour cores are undergoing binary decay, but I can't find the source._"

"_'Shouldn't be happening?' And I suppose Zax cut his own legs off just to get out of work, did he? I've got three miners in the infirmary thanks to your droids! I want answers, damn it!_"

"_Sir, have you considered the possibility of a droid worker revolt?_"

"_What the hell are you talking about?_"

"_You know, sir...the droid proletariat struggling to throw off the shackles of the organic bourgeoisie?_"

It certainly looked like mismanagement was to blame, judging from this conversation...

"_Droids don't understand class struggle, you moron! This is sabotage! And it all started after the commander said we weren't going to sell the Jedi to the Exchange!_"

...or perhaps not.

Kiven switched off the terminal. Now he was getting somewhere. The Exchange was offering a bounty on Jedi, and while they were a frighteningly powerful organisation, for them to antagonise the Jedi in this manner was like poking a sleeping wampa with a stick.

Unless, of course, there were so few Jedi left that they could be hunted down one by one.

Ten years ago, Kiven had predicted that the Jedi Order would eventually collapse due its ever-increasing dysfunction and accumulated instabilities. But it was something he envisioned happening forty or fifty years down the line, not ten.

All those essays and diatribes he'd written seemed so far away now. Kiven was not yet in his thirties, yet it felt as though had already led five different lives – one as a child on Nar Shaddaa, one with his smuggler foster-father, one as a Jedi, one as a singer, and one as an exile. He told himself that his life as a Jedi was firmly in the past and that he had forgotten his command of the Force over the years. And he could almost believe it, right until he approached a set of doors and heard Kreia's voice inside his head.

"_...__be careful...I sense much energy in the room ahead, yet it is not of the living..._"

It took him a second to realise she was speaking via telepathy, a means of communication he considered a disgustingly invasive.

"_Can you not feel it...? Reach out...cast aside the sight that limits you...feel the faint oscillations of the droids beyond..._

The last thing he needed now was some disembodied voice telling him to use the Force. But he _could_ sense the droids lurking behind the door, their electromagnetic fields generating waves of energy that were imperceptible to ordinary beings, but sent out ripples through the Force.

He had been taught that every Jedi's relationship with the Force was unique. Kiven's however, was a little more than unique than most. He was utterly incapable of sensing living beings through Force, nor could he detect Force-sensitive individuals. It was not an exaggeration to say that he could be standing next to the most powerful Jedi who ever lived and he would be completely unaware of it.

There was one simple way to deal with droids up ahead: Force lightning – the ability to channel the raw energy of the Force into arcing bolts of electricity that would quickly obliterate all but the hardiest droids. It was a dangerous technique, being almost impossible to control, and for that reason the Jedi strongly discouraged its use. Perhaps that was why Kiven had such an affinity for it.

Yet he had sworn an oath to himself never to use the Force again, and he'd be damned if he were going to break it now. He could use his gun, but against multiple opponents its slow rate of fire would be liability.

A solution presented itself back in the security office. The vibrosaw that the security officer had confiscated was stashed behind his desk, still in its box. His rifle wasn't the only the thing here that was made on Eshan, as this wasn't any ordinary vibrosaw. No, this was a _Majavanhammas, _built to tackle the biggest hardwood trees on the Echani homeworld. It was nothing compared to a lightsaber, but there was no question that it could easily hack through a couple of mining droids.

Kiven slung his rifle over his shoulder and lifted the vibrosaw from its box. To his surprise, he discovered that it was quite light for a logging tool. He switched it on, and the motor started up with a comforting rumble. A single squeeze of the trigger sent the blades whirling at a ferocious speed.

He took a deep breath, revved up the vibrosaw, and walked to the door. It opened automatically, revealing a pair of mining droids and several dead bodies scattered about the room. Some looked to have been bludgeoned to death, while others had cut apart with a mining laser.

One of the droids took a swing at him, only for its arm to meet the falling blade of his vibrosaw. Kiven stepped to the side, positioning himself that the droid in front of him blocked the one behind.

The vibrosaw's cutting chain tore through the droid's plating with ease, making an utterly hideous screeching noise and sending a shower of sparks in all directions. It took just a few seconds to slice through the droid's arm, and as soon as it fell to the floor Kiven drove the vibrosaw into the droid's body.

If droids could feel fear and pain, then this thing must have thought it was in horror holovid.

The second droid crab-walked around the first, and the scene repeated itself. It attacked Kiven with one of its arms, and once more metal met metal. The cacophonous din that resulted was enough to give someone an instant headache.

Before it could take a swipe at him, Kiven thrust the vibrosaw at the droid's head, the diamond cutting teeth rapidly cutting through the delicate circuits of its optical sensors and tearing into its brain. The droid's remaining limbs thrashed about for a few seconds as its motivator received sporadic signals from its mangled brain before it collapsed with a dismal electronic howl.

Kiven deactivated the vibrosaw and surveyed his handiwork. _Not exactly subtle, but it seems to have gotten the job done._ He waited several minutes to catch his breath; even this brief tussle had completely drained him of his stamina.

After what felt like an eternity, he started walking again, unsure of where he was going. There was a sign attached the ceiling that read _Administration Centre,_ which sounded like a place where he might find more information regarding his predicament.

Just a few metres ahead, the dark hallway opened up into a huge, cavernous chamber. Though the main lighting was out, there was still illumination from the banks of control consoles at the far end. More bodies were scattered about the room, along with the remains of several mining droids. He couldn't hear anything moving about in here, which was a relief since his strength was totally spent. More memories of his last days on Hoth drifted back into his mind, and he remembered desperately trying to ration what was left of his food supplies in the hopes that he would find a new source of nourishment. But with each passing day Kiven went hungry he grew weaker, which only made it more difficult to find food. Had that wampa not attacked him, he would have surely starved to death.

That he had been rescued was the will of the Force, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt. It had let him run and hide from the galaxy for a few years, but now it was hell-bent on dragging him back into things. Had it ever been any different? When Kiven told people that the Jedi Council had cut him off from the Force, he hadn't been telling a _total _lie. They had indeed tried to sever his connection, but it had only resulted in the gruesome deaths of those Jedi tasked with the procedure. The Force, it seemed, objected to any attempt at loosening its hold on him.

Kiven suddenly felt faint and light-headed. He leaned against the wall and waited for the feeling to subside. How much further could he go on? He was so weak now. The vibrosaw in his hands, which had seemed so light just minutes ago, now felt as though it were made of lead.

There was a door labelled _Detention Area_ near the rear of the central chamber. This struck Kiven as rather odd; why would they keep the prisoners so close to central operations? Furthermore, why would a mining facility have a prison in the first place? Either management was extraordinarily heavy-handed, or the miners were a particularly unruly lot.

When he approached the entrance, Kreia's voice echoed in his mind. "_Be wary, there is someone beyond this door...his thoughts are difficult to read. But you have nothing to fear from him, and he may yet prove useful..._"

"Would you stop _doing_ that?" he thought aloud.

Regardless, he walked through the door, and nothing he had experienced thus far could prepare him for what he saw inside.

There were a number of force cages in the room, although only one was occupied at present. He took one stop forward, then froze.

The man inside the force cage was completely naked.

When he saw Kiven standing in the doorway, he let out a yelp of surprise and squatted down in an attempt to preserve what was left of his modesty. "What...who...who are you? Don't come near me!"

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said after the shock wore off. Kiven looked askance at the force cage, not wishing to gawk at the man's unfortunate state of undress.

"Uh-huh, sure you won't. No offence, whoever you are, but you look like a crazy homeless man from the slums of Nar Shaddaa. That, and you've got a vibrosaw in your hands. I think I'll take my chances in here, thank you very much!"

He couldn't blame this man for his reaction; if their positions were reversed, Kiven would have probably acted the same. "That's fair, I guess. But...who are you? And...uh...where are your clothes?"

"The name's Atton Rand," he replied. "As for my clothes, well, let me ask you this: you ever heard of 'Nar Shaddaa rules'?"

"Yes, unfortunately. But I'm rather certain it doesn't involve getting thrown in a cage."

"Blame security. I just was finishing up a game of pazaak when they burst in and dragged me off, saying I had violated some trumped-up regulation or another. Didn't even give a me chance to put my clothes back on."

Atton spoke with such a smarmy, cocksure tone that Kiven wondered if being thrown into prison sans clothing wasn't some form of retaliation on the miners' part. "You're obviously not one of the miners. What are you doing here?"

Being interrogated while undressed was quite clearly not his idea of a good time. "I'm a freelance courier specialising in discreet, duty-free cargo transportation."

"So you're a smuggler, then?"

"Well, if you have put it like _that..._"

"Never mind. Do you have any idea what happened here? All I know is that the mining droids went crazy and started killing everyone."

Atton glanced up at him with an exasperated expression. "Look, I'll be more than happy to play Twenty Questions with you if you get me out of here and find me my clothes!"

Kiven took a step back. "Just a minute ago you were saying that you'd rather stay in your cage. Why the sudden change of heart?"

"I, uh, didn't mean it, all right? Just...just get me out of here! There's a switch on the wall, right over there." He gestured at the control panel with his elbow.

Kreia spoke to him across the void once more. "_It would be prudent to do as he asks,_" she said. "_We cannot have this fool running about without his clothes, flaunting his inadequacies for all to see..._"

He walked over to the panel and deactivated Atton's force cage. For a second Kiven thought about whether setting this man free was a good idea. He _seemed_ harmless enough, but something about his demeanour felt wrong somehow, although he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was, exactly.

"My clothes are in those lockers over there, third one from the left."

Kiven opened the locker, and found a pair of heavy boots, a white shirt, dark pants, and a brown synthleather vest, along with a blaster and a pazaak deck. There was something else at the bottom of the locker, and he leaned forward for a closer look. He immediately wished he hadn't.

"There's some pornographic holotapes in here as well," said Kiven, tossing Atton's clothes and equipment to the side. "They yours?"

"Uh, no, of course not!" he snapped. "They must be one of the miners'."

"All right, so maybe now you can tell me what happened here." He kept his back turned while Atton got dressed.

"You mean before or after that Jedi showed up?" he said, hurriedly putting on his clothes. "Because when...aw_ frak,_ you're him, aren't you? I thought you looked familiar. You're the Jedi Sexile!"

Kiven looked back, just as Atton buckled up his pants. "_What _did you just call me?"

"The Jedi Sexile. You know, 'cause you're so sexy. That's what the ladies call you, anyway. Though I can't imagine them finding you too good-looking the way you are now, with your crazy homeless man beard and all that."

In the back of his mind, he had always been aware that women found him extremely attractive. It had always made him very uncomfortable, however, and he had never experienced anything remotely akin to a romantic relationship.

"Right after you showed up," Atton continued, "a bunch of miners got it into their heads that since you were unconscious, they could sell you to the Exchange. They've posted this huge bounty on Jedi, and those miners figured they could split the credits and every one of them could like a king for the rest of his life. Looks like their little plan didn't work out."

"What happened?"

"Security got wind of their plan, and they didn't like it one bit. So the two groups started fighting, I got thrown in a cage, there was this big explosion, and then some Jedi who looks like a vagabond showed up and started asking me a bunch of questions."

Kiven noticed that there was an unopened energy drink sitting on a nearby shelf. As he was dreadfully thirsty, he popped it open and began guzzling the contents.

"Not a whole lot of Jedi left," Atton said. "Wouldn't surprise me if that bounty is pretty high. Most of them got killed in the Jedi Civil War, and those who survived decided that the whole business wasn't worth saving and switched off their lightsabers. I heard there isn't even a Jedi Council any more."

This was all a bit too much to take it in at once. "'Jedi Civil War'?"

Atton stared at him incredulously. "You know, the war that nearly burned the entire galaxy to the ground? Where have you been for the last few years?

Kiven set the vibrosaw on a shelf, finding its weight nearly unbearable. "I've spent the past seven years alone on Hoth. I have no idea what's been happening during that time."

"Hoth? Why would you...never mind. Anyway, I'll give you the short version. This Jedi named Merdinus Deculo fell to the dark side, fled into parts unknown, and some time later he comes back at the head of this huge fleet, calling himself 'Darth Irenaceus', the Dark Lord of the Sith, blah blah blah...you know the rest."

He spat out a mouthful of energy drink. "What? _Merdinus Deculo_ became the Dark Lord? The bloody _actor?_ How did he manage _that?_"

Atton shrugged. "I don't know...same way anyone becomes the Dark Lord – by killing a whole bunch of people."

Merdinus Deculo had been trained at the Jedi academy on Dantooine, the same one that Kiven had attended. He had never spoken with the man, but he had protested vigorously to the Jedi Council about their decision to show him the ways of the Force. Merdinus was a complete idiot, he argued, and the Council would come to regret their choice in short order. In turn, the Council had dismissed his concerns owing to his lowly rank of Padawan. It had been the beginning of a long and troubled relationship between him and the Jedi Council.

"If that man was at the head of a fleet, as you say, then he would have flown his ships into a sun at the earliest opportunity. Merdinus was an _idiot,_ Atton!"

"Yeah, and that 'idiot' nearly brought the Republic crashing down. He bombed Telos into oblivion, turned Taris into a radioactive slag-heap, then sent the Jedi academy on Dantooine up in a mushroom cloud after killing everyone inside. And that's just the stuff I can tell you off the top of my head."

Again he was almost overcome by a sensation of lightheadedness. As much as he hated his life as a Jedi, the Dantooine Enclave had been his home for several years. Learning that it had been completely destroyed a by a man like Merdinus Deculo, of all people, was like a punch to the gut.

"Someone stopped that lunatic, I hope."

"Some Echani woman named Aina Kaamos killed him. I think she was trained as a Jedi, but after the war ended she denounced them and returned to her home planet. Can't say I blame her."

"Aina Kaamos? I wonder if she's related to Marja Kaamos." That was name of the Echani warrior he had met on Dxun during the Mandalorian Wars. Kiven couldn't remember much of what had happened in that terrible place, but he did remember her. How could he forget? She had been the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes upon.

"How would I know?" said Atton, annoyed. "Look, I'm sure I could spend all day filling you in on galactic events, but that can wait until _after_ we got off this rock." He grabbed his blaster and started towards the door.

The vibrosaw was too heavy and clumsy, Kiven figured, so he set it aside and unslung his rifle. He didn't trust Atton – the man's demeanour suggested that he was someone whose main concern was looking out for number one – but two heads were better than one, and at the very least he seemed better company than Kreia.

"You didn't happen to meet anyone else around here, did you?" Atton asked in a strangely hostile tone.

"Just some old woman in the infirmary. She was very...odd."

He followed Atton to what looked to be the main operations terminal for the entire facility, judging by the enormous holographic display. Behind that was a trio of high transparisteel windows that provided a rather impressive vista of Peragus II itself.

At one time, Peragus II had been just another uninteresting hunk of rock in an equally uninteresting system. That was until a surveying team had discovered that the planet was a rich in a substance that could be turned into low-grade starship with minimal refining. Smelling an easy profit, several corporations established mining operations on Peragus II, largely unaware of just how dangerous and volatile this newly-discovered substance was. Just three days after the first mine became operational a massive explosion nearly shattered the planet. The exact cause of the accident was never uncovered (likely because everyone involved had been blown to smithereens), but it had resulted in the creation of the Peragus asteroid field and exposed Peragus II's glowing planetary core for all to see. Kiven guessed that these huge windows had been installed to provide everyone with visual reminder of just how dangerous this operation was.

"All right, let's get down to business," Atton said, working the command console. "The administrator of this place owns a luxury yacht called the _Fall From Grace. _I overheard some of the miners talking about how he'd just gotten it back from some pirate queen."

"'Pirate queen'?"

"It's a long story. Now, normally we could just take one of the turbolifts down to the hangar bay and fly out of here, but they're all locked down."

"You can override the lockdown, I hope?"

"Sure can. This station's comm system is set to automatically hail any ship that comes in range. I can force the comm array to transmit this signal, then bounce it back to the receiver. Suddenly, you've got access to the entire communications network from the inside."

Kiven wasn't quite sure he followed, but he assumed that Atton knew what he was doing, so he kept watch for any more malfunctioning mining droids while he worked at slicing into the comm system.

"Pure pazaak...the console's ours. Now to just...frak..."

He turned around. "What is it?"

Atton stepped away from the panel. "Some _schutta_ severed this console from the main hub. I can't use it to access any functions beyond this room!"

"What about communications inside the facility? Can we contact the miners?"

"We can try, I guess," he answered with a shrug. "But, uh, maybe you should be the one to try that."

"What? Why me?"

"'Cause you got a sexy voice, that's why. If anyone's still alive, they'll be more likely to listen to you. I've heard people say you can use your tongue better than a Zeltron hooker."

Kiven shot him a hateful glare before approaching the console. He opened up a comm channel to the hangar bay. "Hello? Is anyone there?"

For the next several seconds, they heard nothing except silence from the other end. He was about to try contacting another area of the facility when all of a sudden there was a series of high-pitched whistles and beeps over the channel.

They weren't just any whistles and beeps, however. Kiven recognised those noises at once.

"T3? Is that you?"

The utility droid replied with a rapid series of chirps, indicating his delight at learning his old master was still alive. He then followed up with a low, descending tone suggesting that, while he would very much like to catch up on old times, they were in a great deal of danger and should dispense with idle conversation.

"Merciful fate, it is you!" Finally, there was someone here in whom Kiven could place an absolute trust. "We're trapped up on the administration level. I need you to unlock the turbolifts to the hangar bay so we can get out of here!"

T3 sounded its acknowledgement, giving Kiven some more details about how he had arrived in this place.

"You piloted the ship in? I guess that means I owe you one. But wherever you are, you need to hurry! I get the feeling something bad is going to happen if we don't get out of here soon."

Atton watched all of this disbelief. "You can actually understand that thing?"

"T3-M4 was my only companion before I left for Hoth." He decided to leave out how he had actually met the little droid and how it had saved him from being tortured to death by a band of Mandalorian raiders out for vengeance. "I guess there's nothing we can do now except wait from him to unlock the turbolifts."

Kiven began loading some more bullets into the magazine of his rifle, prompting a snide remark from Atton.

"Nice slugthrower. What backwater planet did you get _that_ from?"

"It's made on Eshan, if you must know, and I paid good money for it. Don't you call it a 'slugthrower'."

He was not impressed. "I figured it was an Echani weapon. I can almost feel its smug sense of superiority."

While could hardly judge an entire race based on one individual, Kiven's brief conversation with Marja Kaamos hadn't given him the impression that she was smug or thought herself superior. On the contrary, she had been one of the warmest, friendliest people he had ever met. In his short time with her he had learned much about Echani culture, such as how their fighting men and women considered themselves warriors, not soldiers, and how her people viewed professional standing armies with great suspicion. She related him to an anecdote about watching some Republic Army changing of the guard ceremony, and one of the soldiers had gotten a bawling out from his superior officer because his medal had been pinned about half a centre to left of where it should have been. "It was his medal," Marja had said. "He should be able to wear it wherever he pleases."

She had also expressed her bafflement at the way recruits were trained in the Republic Army. "It seemed to involve little more than 'drill instructors' shouting obscenities at people. I had to fight to keep myself from laughing."

T3 signalled him through the console. "Please tell me that little cargo cylinder has good news," Atton said.

"That depends on how you define 'good'," Kiven replied. "He says-"

There was a crackling sound of an energy discharge, followed a piercing shriek from the utility droid.

"T3?" Kiven cried, slamming a fist down on the console. "T3, are you there? Come in!"

Despite his pleas, he heard nothing except silence on the line. If he had gotten T3 destroyed, he would never forgive himself.

"That sounded like an ion blaster," Atton said. "Someone down there isn't keen on us leaving. Did that droid of yours get the turbolifts unlocked, at least?"

Kiven shook his head. "No, he said they're locked down manually. But he was able to open the emergency hatch on this level; I should be able to reach the turbolift controls from there, if I'm reading this map display correctly."

Atton's eyes widened. "The emergency hatch? That leads to the mining tunnels. Don't tell me you're actually thinking about going down there!"

"Why? How are the mining tunnels worse than the rest of this place?"

"That big explosion I heard came from below. When Peragian fuel burns, it makes toxic, corrosive gas. You're insane if you're going that way."

He just shrugged. "I don't exactly have a choice, do I?"

"_It's gas that melts your face,_ Kiven!"

"I'm sure I'll find some way to deal with it." He was surprised at just how flippantly he was dismissing such obvious danger. Kiven did not consider himself especially courageous, so there only possible explanation was that he really _was_ crazy.

There was another possible reason, actually, but he didn't want to think about it.

"I'll go by myself; no point in risking both our lives." Far too many people had died because of the decisions he'd made. No point in adding another life to that list.

Atton just shook his head. "You're either really brave or really crazy."

"Crazy, in all likelihood."

He sighed. "Well at least you're upfront about it..."

* * *

><p>It was only a short ways down to the mining tunnels, but it might as well have been a hundred kilometres. The air was hot, and the heavy fur coat Kiven was wearing didn't help matters one bit. There was a sulphurous odour hanging about, no doubt a result of the explosion, but the atmosphere was at least breathable.<p>

"While you're down there," Atton said over their comlink, "you should probably look for some better clothes. Or a shaver. That whole 'crazy homeless Jedi' look is wearing a bit thin."

_Oh shut up,_ he was about to say, but didn't. He was far too worried about the sounds he was hearing from up ahead. Going on the cacophony of _ka-thunking_ that was emanating from the dark mining tunnels, there had to be a large number of mining droids present. Amidst the scattered bodies were a number of mining tools ranging from power-shovels to turbohammers, but nothing that would make an effective weapon.

Kiven crept up behind a large boulder and strained his eyes to see ahead into the darkness. Making matters more difficult was that his left eye was an ocular implant, one with less sensitivity to light than his natural eye on the right. Not only that, the Jedi hadn't been willing to spare the money for an ocular implant that matched his irises' natural colour, leaving with him silly-looking mismatched eyes.

Still, once his one good eye got adapted to the dark he could make out five mining droids moving about, seemingly aimlessly. The magazine in his rifle held five rounds, and in the time it took to reload any one of the droids could overwhelm him. So unless he managed to kill each droid with one shot, that meant a frontal attack was out of the question. He could have lobbed a grenade into their midst if he had any in his possession, but that was liable to set off any remaining Peragian fuel deposits in the area. A quick glance around revealed no other passages he could take.

That left only his most hated option: using the Force.

The question was, could he still use it? Like any other skill, the Force required training and practice, and after ten years of pretending it didn't exist Kiven was sure that his skills had atrophied significantly.

There was only one way to find out. He fixed his eyes on a small rock a few metres away, reached out his hand, and willed it to move towards him.

Kiven was sure it would barely even budge. Instead, the rock came flying towards him at high speed, directly at his head.

"Frak!" he cried, dodging out of its way at the last second.

The noise alerted the mining droids, and the five of them quickly began moving towards him. _That wasn't too smart of me,_ he thought.

Without thinking he raised his hands, and the whole tunnel began to shake. Rocks fell from above, and a second the later the roof the tunnel fell down on the mining droids like a ton of bricks, instantly destroying them. And with that, Kiven had broken the oath he had kept faithfully for the past ten years. That it had been out of necessity was no consolation. He felt weak and ashamed.

_Nothing has changed. _Control of his Force abilities still eluded him, and they were still as potent as ever. But worse than that was the awful feeling he got whenever he called upon the Force – the feeling that someone else was controlling him. He hadn't willed the ceiling to collapse, but the Force had made it happen anyway.

There was just enough space above the heap of rock for Kiven to climb through, at the cost of dirtying up his pristine white wampa fur coat. For a second he wished Atton were here. He may have been a smarmy git, but at least he was someone to talk to. It had been seven years since he'd spoken to another living being, and he'd hardly been sociable before that. In his younger days he'd been content to be left alone, but his time on Hoth had impressed upon him just how desperately in need he was of companionship.

He tried not think about how he had seriously considered trying to befriend a wampa.

Ahead he could hear some loud roaring sound, and around the bend the tunnel opened up into a cavernous chamber. A narrow bridge spanned a wide, circular chasm that ran through the ground below and into the rock above, and going by the strong updraft he could feel as he walked over the bridge Kiven assumed that this had to be the main ventilation shaft.

A second later Atton contacted him over the comlink to confirm what he already suspect. "How much do you want to bet that's where the miners dump all the stuff they want to get rid of?" he added.

"There's a control panel here," Kiven said, walking to the middle of the span. "It looks like a droid control console; I might be able to use it shut down these mining droids."

"Whatever you're doing, you better hurry. I'm picking up some pretty high temperatures in the ore seams down there."

He selected the menu option named '_Administration Functions'. _A sharp noise from the noise indicated that it could not comply with his request, followed by a computerised voice.

"_Access to administrative functions restricted. Please enter or state password._"

"Password?"

The console chimed. "_Password 'password' accepted! Administrative functions unlocked._"

Kiven frowned. What sort of idiot set his password as 'password'? If somebody had been tampering with the mining droids, the miners had certainly made it far too easy for them.

From there on, it was a simple matter to deactivate the mining droids throughout the facility. With any luck, it would spare him any more unpleasant encounters with them. With that done, he started going through the menus in the hopes of finding out whatever he could about the situation. Most of the logs dealt with maintenance and routine mining operations, but then he noticed that there was a holorecording file amongst them. Curious, Kiven played it back.

The monitor displayed a group of three miners standing near the edge of the shaft, almost out of the video frame.

"_What do you want, Coorta? If the boss catches us slacking off again-_"

"_Yeah, well, if we pull this off, we can tell him to go frak himself._"

"_Pull _what_ off?_"

"_All right, what I'm about to tell you stays between the three of us, understand? Just this morning one of the guys told me that the survivor they pulled from that freighter is none other than the lead singer of Blacksaber!_ _Do you know what that means?_"

The man he was speaking to had to think it over for a second. "_Uh, it means he can sign my copy of _The Darkness and the Light_?_"

"_No, you moron! It means he's a Jedi!_"

"_A Jedi? Weren't they all wiped out in the war?_"

"_Guessed they missed one. But the thing is, the bounty on Nar Shaddaa is still open. And it's big...real big. We split that money between the three of us and we'll never have to work another day in our lives again!_"

"_Are you on spice? The officers will never go for that!_"

"_Then we'll just have to keep it a secret, won't we?_"

Another man entered the frame, not looking too pleased. "_Hey you idiots! You aren't getting paid to stand around and chitchat! Get back to work!_"

The man who called himself Coorta spoke with the unmistakable accent of someone who had spent his formative years on Nar Shaddaa. Kiven had spoken with that same brogue once, and after leaving that hellhole of a moon he had worked so hard to get rid of it that his speech could easily be mistaken for that of a wealthy Coruscanti.

Knowing this, it was hardly a surprise that Coorta had hatched such a vile plan. Nar Shaddaa was a world of hustlers and thugs, whose people had no goal or aspiration beyond "getting mine." Yet what he truly loathed about the Smuggler's Moon was not that it existed, but that some people looked at the way people lived there and actually concluded that it was somehow admirable. A holodrama had aired about a year prior to Kiven's exile which told the story of a poor refugee who came to Nar Shaddaa with nothing but the clothes on his back. With a combination of hard work and perseverance, the protagonist forged his own criminal empire, only for everything to come crashing down in a blood-soaked finale. It was complete drivel, he thought – it was obvious that the writers had never set foot on Nar Shaddaa and had a ludicrously romanticised image of the moon as being some land of "freedom" and "opportunity." Kiven had sent an angry email to the production company, informing them that their holodrama was utter rubbish, and that had it taken place in real life the main character would have been robbed and murdered within five minutes of getting off the transport. They had never written him back.

Atton's voice jolted him from his reverie. "Uh, I don't want to alarm you or anything, but I've detected a massive temperature spike in your area! One of the ore seams must have ignited. You've got to get out of there before the whole place goes up!"

He was not exaggerating. Through the Force Kiven could sense the pressure building up within the rock, and he suspected his act of collapsing the ceiling had disturbed some fragile equilibrium.

Spying an exit ahead, Kiven started running as fast as his legs could carry him, which wasn't terribly fast. The morphine had dulled the pain, but it made him feel sluggish and weary. Somewhere behind him there was a loud _fwishhh _sound as the Peragian fuel deposits reached autoignition temperature.

For a second, it was as though time had stopped. Was he going to die in this place? It hardly seemed right that he should be dragged from his home on Hoth and wake up in an unfamiliar place, only to get himself killed less than hour afterwards. But that would be forgetting the lesson he'd learned from Nar Shaddaa – that life wasn't fair, and few ever got what they deserved.

The exit was just a metre in front of him, and a wall of superheated gas was rapidly approaching from behind. In an attempt to keep the explosion from spreading, the automatic safety system was sealing every door on this level.

Not knowing what else to do, Kiven leapt forward, clumsily splaying himself out on the hard, metal floor and narrowly avoiding getting his feet crushed beneath the descending door. Everything around him shook as the explosion roared through the tunnels, incinerating anything unfortunate enough to find itself trapped within.

Kiven rolled onto his side, and saw a faintly-illuminated sign in the distance that read '_This facility has gone 375 days without a lost time accident'__. _Clearly it had not been updated to reflect recent events.

It occurred to him that putting up a sign like that was practically begging for a catastrophe to happen.

He tried to get back to his feet, but his feeble muscles weren't up to the task. So as before in the kolto chamber, Kiven could do nothing except lie there, helpless, waiting for his heart to stop pounding. He was so tired. All he wanted to do was lie down in a comfortable bed and sleep, which was rather odd because he hadn't slept in a comfortable bed since his exile and he thought he would have been used to it by now.

When he regained enough strength to stand up, he started limping down the hallway. There were no signs indicating what part of the facility this was, though numerous tools and pieces of mining equipment scattered around the place suggested it was some sort of maintenance area.

The lighting system was completely fried in the corridor ahead, making it nearly impossible to see where he was going. He could make out a junction further on up, illuminated solely by a dim light hanging from the ceiling by its wires.

Kiven gripped tightly to his gun. He had shut down the mining droids, but that didn't mean he was alone down here. Whoever had attacked T3 was still out there and no doubt looking for him. He only hoped that whatever damage this person had inflicted on the utility droid was not permanent. People might laugh when he said a droid was his closest friend, but T3 was the one individual that he could trust with his deepest secrets, and that would never ask him about subjects he wasn't willing to discuss, like Malachor or Dxun.

The steady droning noise of machinery grew louder with every step he took, mixed in with the hissing sound of steam escaping for a ruptured conduit somewhere. A power cable had fallen loose from the ceiling and sparked every so often, briefly illuminating the corridor with a harsh, blue light.

It was like something out of a horror holovid, he thought. One where the main characters were sent to investigate a distress signal from a ship or space station, only to discover that the crew had been gruesomely massacred by mutant abominations or something equally horrifying.

There was a good one that had come out just a year or so before his exile, he remembered. He couldn't recall the entire story, but it involved an engineer fighting through some monster-infested mining ship in search of his girlfriend.

Another junction lay ahead, intermittently lit by flickering emergency lights along the wall. A dead body lay on the floor, this one of a man with a shock of red hair and pair of welding goggles around his head. Whoever this person was, he had met a grisly fate, with both of his lower legs severed with what he guessed had been a cutting torch.

_Poor bastard,_ he thought, gazing down at the dead man's face.

A voice emerged from the darkness, one that sounded oddly refined. "Greeting: it is a pleasure to see that you are alive and unharmed..._master._"


	3. Harbinger

Chapter 3 – Harbinger

* * *

><p>Kiven's body acted light-years ahead of his mind.<p>

He spun around, saw something mechanical moving towards him in the dim lighting, and squeezed the trigger of his rifle.

The shot tore through the droid's left eye, exiting through the back of its cranium and continuing on into the wall behind.

Amazingly, the droid appeared to be unharmed and only mildly annoyed. "Irritated statement: I will be unable to assist you, master, if you insist on blasting holes in my optical sensors. It would be in both our interests if you could restrain your itchy trigger in the future."

Now things had taken a turn for the surreal. "Who the hell are you?"

"Answer: I am a survivor of the _Harbinger,_ as are you, master. After the unexpectedly gruesome termination of my previous master, you are now the only organic which I may serve."

So it was a protocol droid, he thought. "The _Harbinger, _was that the ship I came here on?"

"Answer: no, master. The ship on which we arrived at this facility was a _Dynamic-_class light freighter that suffered a catastrophic failure of its ion engines shortly after you and the other survivors were extracted. The subsequent explosion resulted in the unfortunate vaporisation of all organics within the immediate vicinity. There is a 97% probability that failure to perform regularly-scheduled maintenance was to blame."

"Then what was the _Harbinger,_ and how did I get there from here?"

"Irritated answer: oh master, that is such a long, dull story, and not terribly relevant to our present situation. Reluctant explanation: the _Harbinger_ was a _Hammerhead-_class cruiser en route to Telos, whose captain I served in the role of facilitating communications and terminating hostilities. Shortly after departure, you were transferred from a ship belonging to an organisation calling themselves the 'Interplanetary Union of Astronomers'. A review of this group's activities revealed their moniker to be a misnomer of the highest degree. Though I suspect, master, that you were quite unaware of what was happening owing to your state of incapacitation."

He didn't like the way this droid spoke that word. "'Incapacitation'?"

"Placation: merely a turn of phrase, master. The suggestion that you were rendered unconscious as a result of the ingestion of large quantities of distilled spirits, while in accordance with your reputation, was unintentional. It is likely that the severity of your injuries precluded your awareness of anything that occurred on-board the _Harbinger, _up to and including the cascading failure of its weapons, engines, and communications."

Another piece of the puzzle fell into place, a puzzle that was shaping up to be quite bizarre indeed. So the Interplanetary Union of Astronomers had rescued him from Hoth, which would have made sense except for the fact that _astronomers_ generally weren't in the business of tracking down former Jedi. It was possible that they had been doing a research survey of the Hoth system and stumbled across him by accident, but that odds of that were exceedingly remote.

The droid continued it's explanation. "Shortly after your arrival on-board, master, the _Harbinger_ responded to a distress signal from the freighter whose mangled wreckage now occupies hangar 64-D."

"'Distress call'? What happened to it?"

"Speculation: I am unaware of its purpose, master. Perhaps it intended to play dead, then kidnap you off the _Harbinger _and rob me of my bounty. Once the freighter arrived at this floating rock, our situation became much clearer."

Kiven took a step back, still keeping his rifle trained on the droid. Something was very wrong with it, he could tell that much. "'Bounty'? What are you talking about?"

"Hasty explanation: despite my obvious market value, the miners on this station were far more interested in you. Annoyed statement: following your transferral to the medbay, I was thoughtlessly relocated to this maintenance bay. My attempt at impressing upon the miners the effrontery of this act was, sadly, a failure."

"They planned to sell me to the Exchange. I saw the recordings."

"Affirmation: that was indeed their plan, master. While an HK protocol droid is a valuable piece of property owing to the superior quality of its programming and construction, a Jedi is worth far more in certain..._exclusive..._circles."

He took another step back. There was no model of protocol droid he knew of that bore the HK prefix. That was reserved for a line of assassin droids, one of which had instigated the Great Droid Revolution half a century ago. And from what Kiven knew about them, their preferred method of assassination was to pose as protocol droids in order to lull their targets into a false sense of security.

Still, he wasn't ready to make a move yet; not while he could still get some information out of it.

"And that's when the miners started fighting each other about what to do with me," he said. "But that doesn't explain why all the mining droids went berserk."

"Condescending explanation: master, the droids on this station are poorly-constructed bargain units manufactured in sweatshops by starving Sullustan orphans. They are prone to sudden and catastrophic failures of their behaviour cores, frequently resulting in murderous rampages. Perhaps if the administrator of this facility had not decided to save money by purchasing inferior quality mining droids, these 'accidents' could have been avoided. Insulting speculation: I have determined that there is a 99% probability that the administrator of this facility was suffering from an acute case of cranio-rectal embedment syndrome, a common affliction amongst organics."

It was clear that this HK unit had tampered with the mining droids, but Kiven continued to feign ignorance. "And I assume they caused the explosion in the mining tunnels?"

"Affirmation: following the senseless but efficient massacre of numerous mining personnel, the survivors joined you in the medbay, only a for a series of flawlessly-timed explosions in the lower levels to drive them into the emergency sections of the station. There they were cut off from all communication and facility control, but sadly enough, not the ventilation system."

_Flawlessly-timed?_ This was one of the major failures of the HK units, he recalled. In order to ensure that they succeeded in the tasks, they had been programmed to possess absolute confidence in their abilities. Unfortunately, this typically manifested itself as an unbearable arrogance, and HK units were notoriously incapable of concealing their sadistic, bloodthirsty tendencies for any length of time.

"What do you mean, 'sadly enough'?"

"Tedious explanation: the combustion of Peragian fuel, master, results in the production of highly toxic vapours. The explosions damaged the external venting system, allowing a lethal build-up of gas in the dormitory section. Any miner who fled to the dormitory to protect himself from the droids and explosions would have found himself in a gas-filled deathtrap."

The full horror of this situation was finally unfolding. This droid had managed to kill nearly everyone here, and it had done so without raising any suspicion amongst the miners whatsoever. That left the question of just who it was working for, though Kiven knew he wasn't going to find the answer just standing around and talking to it.

"Is anyone in the dormitories still alive?"

"Answer: I do not know, master. I do not possess access to this facility's internal scanners."

Though Kiven doubted if anyone had survived, especially considering the terrifying thoroughness with which this droid had carried out its plan, he knew his conscience would never let him rest if he did not make every effort to save those that he could.

First, though, he would have to deal with this droid.

He could try shooting it, but an assassin droid would likely have armour plating protecting its vital components. And while the HK unit was not carrying a weapon, it doubtlessly had them concealed somewhere on its body. There was the Force, but Kiven was loath to resort to that unless it were absolutely necessary.

No, there had to be another way. Those with an insufferably high opinion of themselves were pathetically easy to manipulate, so long as you allowed them to believe that they had the upper hand. The HK droid was standing just beyond the threshold of a doorway, and a door control panel on the wall. That gave him an idea.

"I'm going to the dormitories to look for survivors," he said, using his best "noble Jedi" tone of his voice, "but I left my medpac back in the mining tunnels. I'm going back for it."

"Obvious warning: master, the recent explosion of Peragian fuel has filled those tunnels with high levels of toxic gas. Entering them would be highly...inadvisable."

"All right, perhaps _you_ could go in there and get it, then?"

The droid lowered its head. "Irritated refusal: master, those vapours are both toxic and corrosive. Entering the mining tunnels poses an unacceptable risk, and would likely result in the pitting and discolouration of my immaculately-polished durasteel plating."

Kiven shrugged. "I suppose you're right. You protocol droids are probably too flimsily-built to survive in hostile environments."

"Irritated objection: master, I have been designed and constructed to the highest possible standards of reliability and durability, and there is no question as to my ability to endure hazardous environments. I will retrieve this medpac of yours if will you will kindly refrain from such insulting statements in the future."

_Just the response I was hoping for._ The HK droid began walking down the darkened hallway, and the instant it was out sight Kiven slammed his hand down the door control panel, slamming the entryway shut behind it. With a push of a few buttons he sealed it shut, and with the door frame being nearly a quarter of a metre in thickness he doubted the HK droid could punch through it.

Kiven grabbed the communicator from his coat pocket. "Atton? You there?"

It took the smuggler a while to respond, and when he did he sounded rather upset. "Are you all right? What happened down there? I lost contact when there was that big explosion."

"Looks like we've got another problem," he said flatly.

"What kind of 'problem'?"

"I just ran into an HK assassin droid down here. It looks like it came aboard this station on a ship called the _Harbinger,_ then posed as a protocol droid while it sabotaged the entire facility."

"An assassin droid? Are you serious? I hope you put a slug in its brain, at least."

"Unfortunately no. I locked it in the mining tunnels, but I don't know how long that will hold it." He quickened his pace down the dimly-hit corridor, unsure of where he was going. "Look, I need to get to the dormitories; there might be some people still alive inside. What's the fastest way to get there?"

He heard Atton sigh over the comlink. "How did I know you were going to try something like this? You Jedi just can't resist playing hero."

Being called a Jedi was like being stung by a gnasp, and Kiven fought to restrain his irritation. "Just tell me where to go!"

"According the station schematics, there's no way to get there from your location. Not unless you put on an environment suit and go walking around on the outside of the asteroid."

"If that's what it takes, then that's what I'm going to do."

Kiven could practically hear Atton throwing up his hands in frustration over the comlink. "All right, I guess it's no skin off my cargo hold if you want to do something stupid. There's an airlock just down the hall from your position. It leads to some maintenance walkways on the exterior, and if you follow those they should take you to the dormitories.

There was a sign indicating that the airlock was just ahead, and to his horror there were a great many more bodies lying about than he had seen anywhere prior. He wondered if they had been trying to seal themselves into airlock to protect themselves from the rampaging mining droids.

Inside there was trio of lockers, each one containing a rather bulky-looking environment suit. Kiven pulled one of the suits free, and thus began the awkward process of actually getting into the thing.

The environment suit consisted of three separate pieces: one covering the legs, one covering the torso, and a helmet. From the look of it, the suit had a rather snug fit, meaning Kiven would have to take off his fur coat before putting it on. But since he couldn't stash the coat inside the environment suit, that would mean he would have to leave it behind in the airlock. Once he reached the dormitories and removed the environment suit, he would be left wearing nothing but his underwear.

And that was completely and utterly unacceptable.

The only apparent solution was to put the suit on over the wampa fur coat, which would result in a very tight fit. Still, any level of discomfort was preferable to immodesty.

After several minutes of clumsily wrangling and fumbling about, he finally managed to don the environment suit. After double-checking the seals, he grabbed his rifle and initiated the airlock cycle. The inner doors locked shut, and there was a loud _whoosh_ as the airlock was evacuated. A second later the outside doors opened.

The instant he stepped outside, there was a soft _click_ as the magnetic boots anchored his feet to the walkway. It was a comforting safety feature, but it also made it harder to lift his feet, and combined with the mass of the environment suit, Kiven feared he would lack the strength to make it to the dormitory section.

Being in a vacuum, he could near nothing except his laboured breathing and the muffled sound of his footsteps. He glanced to his left and immediately wished he hadn't. The sight of the Peragus asteroid field instantly gave him a nauseating sensation of vertigo, so he turned his head away and kept is his eyes locked to the section of walkway directly in front of him.

Kiven had barely gone twenty metres before his legs felt as though were made out of uranium. In the back of his mind he was aware that he could use the Force to give him strength or to hasten his movements, but he remained steadfast in his refusal to tap into its power. There were times when he hated the Force and blamed it for everything that had gone wrong in his life, and in his darker moments he swore that it was merely using him as a toy for its own sadistic amusement.

Atton's voice jolted him from his thoughts. "I don't believe it...there's a ship coming in! It's transmitting a docking code...looks like it's that ship you just mentioned, the _Harbinger._"

His stomach knotted up in fear. Whether it was via the Force or simply instinct, he knew that arrival of ship portended nothing good.

Kiven could see the ship now, starting out as a flickering light against the black backdrop of space, which soon resolved itself into the unmistakable outline of a _Hammerhead-_class cruiser. The ship bore Republic markings, which instantly raised several questions in his mind. If Kreia had indeed been his "rescuer," then why had she taken him from a Republic ship? Despite his unhappy history with the Jedi Order, surely the Republic didn't have it in for him, did they?

When the _Harbinger_ drew nearer, Kiven could not see any signs of damage on its hull, and that meant it had not come under attack. But if that were the case, then what had Kreia been fleeing from?

_I have a bad feeling about this,_ he thought as the _Harbinger _approached the mining facility, moving silently in the vacuum of space. He took cover behind one of the walkway's support beams, fearful that someone on-board the _Harbinger_ might see him. The cruiser gradually slowed to a stop, and one of the station's docking bridges extended towards its airlock. A few seconds later, a narrow conduit attached itself to somewhere near the _Harbinger's _engines, which Kiven suspected was a refuelling line.

He didn't know who or what was on the _Harbinger_, but he suspected it was something really, _really_ bad.

Despite his aching legs, Kiven forced himself onward. Once more he reflected on how much like a horror holovid this day was turning out to be. He remembered another good one that Ruslan had taken him to on Taris. That particular holovid had been about some soldier waking up on a ship controlled by an insane artificial intelligence.

After an agonising stretch of time he finally reached his destination. Once inside the airlock, he hurriedly removed the environment suit, then slumped down against the wall, totally exhausted. His coat was soaked with perspiration, and for the time since he had awoken Kiven noticed the rather terrible reek it was emitting. He himself probably didn't smell too great, either. Regular bathing hadn't been an option on Hoth.

Dirty, smelly, weak, wounded, and so drained that even lifting a finger seemed an impossible task, Kiven had never felt so wretched and low.

With great effort, he raised his communicator to his lips. "Atton, you ever hear anything about the 'Interplanetary Union of Astronomers'?" He was so short of breath that he was panting between every single word.

The question took him by surprise. "Uh, yeah...why do you ask?"

"They...they were the ones who took me from Hoth. Seems a bit of a strange thing for astronomers to do, isn't it?"

"Yeah, well, don't let their name fool you – they've got their fingers in way more things besides stargazing. I heard even the Exchange won't mess with them."

"Any idea why they'd be after me?"

"What makes you think I'd know? But if I had to guess, it probably has something to do with Malachor."

Kiven cringed. Since waking up in the medbay he'd been dreading the inevitable moment when someone brought that subject up.

In his mind, the cataclysm that he had unleashed in the Malachor system was not a memory, but a feeling. It was a mental image of a tremendous wave crashing against the shore; a terrible flood that swept away everything in its path.

In the Sith language, "Malachor" meant "floodland." Why the Sith had given this name to a star system was a mystery lost to time, but Kiven felt it appropriate considering the devastation he had unleashed there.

Much like the rest of the Mandalorian Wars, his recollection of the Battle of Malachor was fragmentary and fractured. He remembered exiting hyperspace, and his terror at discovering the presence of the Mandalorian's main battle fleet in the system. The Republic forces were hopelessly outnumbered, and the battle soon turned into a rout.

In desperation, he had ordered the Mass Shadow Generator deployed, and then...

...then what?

The next thing Kiven recalled was the Jedi Council handing down the sentence of exile upon him. But even this memory was hazy and distant, like a half-remembered dream. The one thing that _had_ stuck in his head all these years was the cold, icy expression on the face of-

The sheer hatred that recollection evoked gave him enough strength to stand up and continue on his way.

Like the other sections of the mining facility, main lighting was off-line, plunging the entire area into near-total darkness. There were no bodies in the hallway, which give him hope that there might still be survivors.

The corridor branched off, with a sign on the wall indicating _Dormitory 1A._ The entrance was sealed, however, and when Kiven tried to fiddle with the door control panel a computerised voiced indicated that it was unable to fulfil his request.

"_Access denied. Unsafe toxicity levels detected._"

His hope of finding anyone alive rapidly started to dwindle. There was a security console nearby, and with some manipulating he managed to bring up a camera feed from inside the dormitory.

It was a nauseating sight. The room was filled with corpses, and the poisonous fumes from the explosion were still visibly lingering in the air.

He shuddered at the thought of what the miners' last moments must have been like, locked inside a room as their lungs filled with toxic gases, trying desperately in vain to escape. And it was all because of him, because the galaxy hadn't simply _left him alone._

_ I tried to warn them in my last message,_ he thought. _I told them anyone looking for me would come to a bad end. Why didn't they listen to me?_

With some work, Kiven navigated the menu system and activated the air scrubbers. They kicked in with a loud whirring noise, and after a few minutes the dormitory doors opened. A faint, sulphurous odour was all that remained of the toxic fumes.

He stepped into the dormitory and immediately wished he hadn't. The corrosive gases had left the bodies' skin blistered and raw. Kiven covered his nose with the sleeve of his coat.

There was no one to be saved here, and he began walking towards the exit when he noticed a datapad lying in the clutches of one of the bodies. The man it presumably belonged was clothed differently than the other miners, which might have meant nothing, but Kiven picked up his datapad regardless.

It belonged to the administrator of the facility, and after leaving the dormitory he began reading through the man's personal logs. Most of them were little more than angry rants about the quality of the employees, but two in particular stood out. He began playing back the first.

"_Just got word that those mercs I hired to track down the _Fall From Grace_ have finally located her. But the strange thing is that they say they found the ship adrift with no sign of 'Captain' Morgan or her crew. I had the ship brought back to the station__, and a brief walk-through revealed no major damage or mistreatment. Rather surprising after being used as a pirate vessel for...what was it...five years now?_"

The name "Morgan" made Kiven twitch, but he couldn't why. As far as he knew, he had never heard that name before. He started playing back the very last entry.

"_Looks like this new surveillance system I installed is already paying off. I caught Coorta and some of the miners talking about selling the Jedi to the Exchange. Even for a scumbag like him, this is pretty low. This isn't just any Jedi we've got in the medbay, this is the hero who ended the Mandalorian Wars! If he were awake I'd head straight down there and shake his hand._"

He wanted to stop playback right there. He could stand people calling him a monster, but when people called a hero it made him unbearably uncomfortable.

The log continued. "_I sent word to the Republic about the Jedi, and they're going to send a ship by to pick him up. Admiral Onasi expressed his desire to meet him in person, but I persuaded him not to. Knowing the admiral's reputation, I'd rather not have him on-board this facility. That said, I'm not sure if his curse extends to space stations, or if it's just restricted to ships._"

Kiven frowned. Admiral Onasi? A curse? What was he going on about?

He set the datapad aside and continued on his way. A cursed admiral, a gang of renegade astronomers, a former actor turned Sith Lord...at what point had the galaxy decided that now would be the best time for it to go _completely insane?_

Or maybe the galaxy _was_ sane, and it was he that had lost his mind.

For the next few minutes he checked every dormitory, but each one had become a charnel house. Having lost hope of finding anyone alive down here, he pressed on. T3 lingered in his thoughts, and Kiven feared he would never find him in this dark and dismal place. No doubt that HK droid was responsible, which meant it was unlikely he'd find T3 in a salvageable condition. Assassin droids weren't known for leaving a job half-done.

At long last he came to the turbolift doors, only to find that there were more corpses scattered about. These ones looked to have been killed with blasters or mining lasers instead of toxic gas, but Kiven was beyond caring at this point. All he wanted was to get off this station before he collapsed from exhaustion.

Yet something caught his eye. One of the bodies bore the name tag "Coorta," the miner who, if not the instigator of this calamity, had at least played a major part in it. Curious as to what had befallen him, Kiven backtracked to a security console and looked over the surveillance footage. The administrator must have gotten paranoid about his employees, as the system permitted him to keep every single section of the facility under his watchful eye. It was even programmed to detect weapons fire or energy discharges, rather prudent given the volatility of Peragian fuel.

It took but short while for him to pull up the surveillance footage of Coorta's grisly demise.

"_...__cutting it a bit close, don't you think? I almost didn't make it out the dorms before the lockdown, you idiot!_"

Another voice spoke over a comlink, one that sounded like the maintenance officer. "_I see you are still unharmed, Coorta, so I would dispense with your complaining. I am picking up a low-band subspace transmission from within that level – is that your doing?_"

One of his accomplices looked to be having some difficulty with the turbolift. "_Hey boss, this turbolift's still locked down!_"

"_Try the code again. And don't worry about those stupid miners and their transmission; by the time help arrives I'll be on Nar Shaddaa doing shots out of a Twi'leks belly button!_"

"_Oh, I'm afraid they won't be leaving the dormitories,_" said the maintenance officer in an oddly smug tone. "_The explosion has damaged the external vents, resulting in a rapid build-up of toxic gases in the living quarters._"

Despite his vicious demeanour, Coorta appeared horrified at this. "_What? But...but that's going to kill them all!_"

"_It is far too late for redemption, Coorta. But you needn't worry; this will not kill _all_ the unfortunate individuals trapped on this level. I am sending some mining droids to your location right now in order to rectify this situation._"

His accomplice was still unable to get the turbolift doors open. "_Coorta, the code isn't working!_"

"_But...you...we had a deal..._"

"_You? It was never about you. The Jedi was all that interested me. You are a risk, Coorta. You are impulsive, crude, __ugly, foul-smelling, dirty, licentious, perfidious, malformed, grotesque, __and most likely a communist. Worst of all, you routinely fail to wash your hands after exiting the refresher. I cannot permit your continued existence._"

"_You...you can't do this!_"

Kiven watched the recording with growing dismay as it showed the doors opening and a trio of mining droids waiting outside.

The disembodied voice changed that of the HK droid. "_Flippant statement: bite my shiny durasteel posterior!_"

In less than five seconds, Coorta and his accomplices were dead.

"_Mocking query: Coorta? Coorta, are you dead yet? __Smug statement: I believe I forgot to mention that I reset the turbolift code to '12345' in the event you made it this far. Rhetorical question: I wonder how long it would have taken him to input the correct code by accident via frantically mashing the keypad?_"

That was the biggest flaw in the HK units, Kiven thought – they simply didn't know when to shut up. He made his way to the turbolift, silently praying to no one in particular that there would be no more setbacks.

* * *

><p>Much to Kiven's displeasure, Kreia greeted him almost the second he exited the turbolift. It turned out she was not just an unpleasant figment of his imagination, despite his hopes.<p>

"I have felt a disturbance," she said with a subtle urgency in her voice. "Our enemy is here. We must leave at once."

"Who is 'our enemy'?"

"There is no time to explain. We must find that fool in the administration area, then make our way to the hangar bay in all haste."

When they reached Atton, he looked about displeased to see Kreia as Kiven had been. "What the...who's this?" he exclaimed. "Another Jedi? Did you guys start a breeding program while I wasn't looking or something?"

Kiven wasn't in the mood for his attempts at wit. "We're leaving. Now."

"Not so fast. We can't just fly out of here unless we've got an asteroid drift chart. Otherwise, we'll get smashed to pieces the second we leave the docking bay. And as one who has a keen interest in his continued existence, I'm _against_ that sort of thing."

_How did I know something like this was bound to happen?_ "Aren't there any drift charts in the station's databanks?"

Atton shook his head. "That's what I thought, but the drift charts are created by this station's computers based on sensor data, and then it gets transmitted automatically to any ships that send out a docking code."

"So? What's the problem?"

"The problem is, I can't download those drift charts from this level, and probably none of the other levels, either. That assassin droid you mentioned must have cut all access to the astrogation databanks in order to keep people from leaving. Which means we're _frakked!_" He began angrily pacing about, looking like he wanted nothing more than to blast something. "And I'm guessing that ship out there isn't carrying friends of yours, either!"

Kiven hesitated before speaking, forming a plan in his mind. "No, but I'll bet it has up-to-date drift charts stored in its navicomputer."

"What? You're not actually thinking of going over there...no, wait, of _course_ you are. Gah! Have I mentioned you're crazy yet?"

"I sincerely hope your talent for complaining matches your skill with a blaster," Kreia said snidely, "otherwise I fear our time together may be short indeed."

"No worries, your majesty. I'm as good with a blaster as he is with drinking," Atton said, gesturing at Kiven.

He ignored the slight. "Then let's get moving."

Fortunately for them, it was only a short distance the station's airlock.

_Unfortunately_ for them, the HK droid had caught up with the group, and was now confidently striding towards them with a blaster rifle in its hands.

"Threat: master, before you so rudely sealed me inside the mining tunnels, I was about to suggest that your best course of action was to shut down, stay put, and await rescue."

Kiven unslung his rifle and levelled it at the droid. "Sadly to say, I was never very good at doing what I'm told. I know you killed the miners on this station."

"Indignant response: master, the miners on this station intended to place you in jeopardy, thus I was left with no choice but to negotiate a termination of hostilities. My client was quite insistent that you remain unharmed."

"And who is this 'client' of yours?"

"Chiding answer: master, my programming prohibits me from divulging that information. I am free, however, to say that my client is very wealthy, and very interested in possessing the last of the Jedi."

Kiven knew that the chances of resolving this situation without violence were close to nil, but he had one more trick up his sleeve. "I just have one thing I'd like to say: the following statement is true. The preceding statement is false."

"Smug dismissal: master, surely you did not think that my programming could be confounded with such a simple logical paradox, did you?"

"It was worth a try," he said with a shrug. "I don't want to fight you, but you leave me no choice."

"Resignation: very well, master, if inflicting pain is the only way of resolving this matter, then I will do what I must. Boastful statement: you can expect no mercy, as that feature was removed in my latest operating system upgrade."

Kiven closed his eyes, and without thought or consideration he reached out his hand and let the Force flow through him. Like a floodgate opening, its energy burst forth from his hands, taking the form of searing forks of lightning that instantly arced towards the HK droid. The massive surge of energy easily overwhelmed its circuitry and overloaded its power source, causing it to explode in a brilliant shower of sparks.

When he opened his eyes, there was the pungent smell of ozone in the air...and the smoking remains of an HK assassin droid.

"_Frak,_" Atton whispered, sounding more than a little terrified of what he had just witnessed.

Once more, Kiven felt dirty for using the Force in this manner. But the truth was there were only three things in the galaxy that was good at: singing, drinking, and using the Force to destroy things. Sadly, only the last of these would avail him here.

With the HK droid out of the way, the trio proceeded to the airlock, which brought forth another round of whining from Atton. "I can't believe we're just charging head-first onto a ship filled with who-knows-what. Oh, and coincidentally, poking around a krayt dragon's lair is a _great_ way to spend an afternoon. I mean, how did you psych yourself up for this, Kiven? Did you imagine there's some huge stash of booze on that ship or what?"

Atton's snide remarks were quickly wearing down his patience. "I haven't a had a drink in seven years, Atton. Would you _please_ stop bringing that up?"

"That's only because you spent all that time on some frozen ice-ball. Once a drunk, always a drunk." He spoke these last words with such viciousness that it was as though Atton had been momentarily replaced by some far more hateful individual. It only further solidified Kiven's suspicion that there was something not quite right about him.

When the _Harbinger's_ airlock doors opened, Kiven expected to be confronted by their enemies. Instead, the corridor ahead was dark and deserted. He was vaguely familiar with the layout of these ships, having been travelled aboard one during the Mandalorian Wars. If he recalled the layout correctly, then the bridge should be just a short ways to their right.

Kreia raised her hand. "Something is wrong; I sense no one on board. Everyone here has been slain, but there no signs of battle, no carbon scoring, no blaster fire. This ship was attacked by assassins of a different sort."

Predictably, this did not sit well with Atton. "Then what are we still doing on this ship? We were better off on the mining station! You two have got to be the worst Jedi I've ever met!"

By now Kiven had almost had his fill of the smuggler's constant complaining. "Maybe you'd like it back in your cell?"

Atton crossed his arms. "Maybe I would! At least there I was safe!"

"But you had no clothes on!"

"I still had my dignity!"

As impossible as it seemed, Kiven swore he heard Kreia stifle a laugh.

"All right, we're not going to get anywhere by bickering. Would I be correct in assuming that the drift charts will be on the bridge?"

"Yeah, they'll be stored on the ship's navicomputer. But look, since coming on-board was your idea, _you_ can lead the way."

"Fine."

True to his memory, the _Harbinger's_ bridge was just through the next door to his right. He would have thought himself used to seeing dead bodies by now, but the scene on the bridge was ghastly, even compared to what he'd seen in the mining facility. At least a dozen bodies were scattered about, and the decks and floors were smeared with blood and gore.

A strong wave of nausea came over Kiven. He had seen far too much of this sort of senseless slaughter during the war.

_Bodies burning in the fields.._

He looked away from the corpses, focussing his eyes on the captain's command console. "You download the drift charts," he told Atton, "and I'll see if I can pull up anything interesting in the captain's logs."

Strangely enough, the captain's log entries weren't password-protected or restricted in any way. Each one had given a brief description, simplifying matters greatly. He pulled up one titled "Patient Transfer."

"_We picked up the passenger from the IUA ship. Word from the docs is that he's in critical but stable condition. __The IUA left a couple of men on-board, but they've been tight-lipped about what they're going to do with our 'passenger' after we reach Telos.__ To be honest, I've had a bad feeling about this __whole right thing__ from the start. I know the Republic brass considers the IUA our allies, __and they seem friendly enough__, but does a ship full of astronomers really need so much firepower? __I ordered Lieutenant Kiel to do a scan of their vessel, and the thing's packing enough weaponry to level an entire city!_"

Kiven looked up to see Kreia wandering about the bridge, seemingly unperturbed by the carnage surrounding her. She appeared to inhabiting an entirely different world than everyone else. He started playing back another log entry, this one titled "Distress Call."

"_We received an emergency broadcast from a freighter that had come under attack by Sith forces. When we arrived on the scene, we found it adrift along with its attacker. __We attached an umbilical to the Sith vessel and sent three strike teams over, who reported that the entire ship was deserted, though they did manage to recover a single body. The freighter was small enough to tractor into the main hangar, and a search of the ship __turned up nothing except more dead bodies and a badly-damaged T3 unit._"

"_As an aside, I must express my dissatisfaction with the new HK-50 droid we've acquired. For a protocol droid it doesn't seem to be very good at its job. It doesn't take commands very well, is frequently discovered wandering around places it shouldn't be, and it has a very rude and condescending manner unbefitting of its role. I'm going to see about having it replaced at the earliest opportunity._"

Kiven wanted to smack his head in frustration. Had these people not realised that the HK prefix referred to a line of assassin droids? Did they assume it stood for "hugs and kisses?"

Regardless, his picture of the events of the last few days was almost complete. He had been rescued from Hoth by the IUA, who had subsequently transferred him to the _Harbinger_ for emergency medical treatment. They had come across a freighter with Kreia and T3 on-board, and that same freighter had brought him to the Peragus Mining Facility after some catastrophe had befallen the _Harbinger._

The exact nature of that catastrophe was the final piece of the puzzle.

Kiven began playing back the captain's final log entry.

"_...__blasted ship is falling apart! First the comm array goes haywire, and now maintenance is telling me there's a cascade failure in the main weapons-_"

The captain's dictation was interrupted by the voice of the one of the bridge crew. "_Captain, I've got an emergency transmission from Dr. Brennan in the medbay!_"

There was the sound of glass shattering, screaming, and general mayhem. And then he heard a low, gravelly voice.

"_I have come for the Jedi._"

He heard a loud crash, followed by the sound of blaster fire. Whatever had happened in the medbay must have been truly unpleasant.

A woman shrieked. "_No! Not again!_"

"_Take that frakker down!_" someone cried.

"_Open fire!_"

Evidently their attacks proved useless against their mysterious assailant, as the blaster fire immediately ceased. A second later there was the horrible noise of ripping flesh, then a loud _splat._

"_My guts! He...he ripped out ALL MY GUTS!_"

"_Get a security team down there, now!_" the captain barked, while the gruesome sounds continued to play over the comlink.

"_He's not going down!_"

"_Keep firing!_"

"_ARRRRGH, MY LEGS! He's beating_ _me to death with my own legs! ARRRGGHH NOW MY ARMS TOO!_"

"What the hell happened down there?" Atton exclaimed.

Kiven looked at him with a grim expression. "Not so much 'what', I'd say, but 'who'."

Atton stood up from the navigator's chair. "Well, you're _not_ going down there! I know you're thinking about it, so I'll just say it right now. You know when you're watching a horror holovid, and some poor slob is about to walk into a room with something horrible in it and you just want to scream '_Don't go in there!_'? Well, I'm the guy telling you, '_Don't go in there!_'"

"Did you get the drift charts?"

"Yeah. Now let's get out of here before whoever painted the medbay walls red comes back!"

The trio left the bridge, only to find that the hatch to the airlock refused to budge. Worse, the door control panel looked to have been cut out with a plasma torch, and all that remained of it was a smoking, sparking hole in the bulkhead.

Atton threw up his arms. "Oh, that's just great! Now we're trapped here!" He shot Kreia a withering glare. "I thought you said there was no one on this ship!"

Kiven spoke before she could give some cutting remark. "Wait, when this ship docked, I saw a refuelling line extend from the mining facility. Maybe we can use it get back there?"

Instead of loudly expressing his exasperation, Atton just sighed in resignation. "Just my luck – the one Jedi left is the one with a death wish."

But Kiven wasn't paying attention to Atton. He could have sworn that he had just seen an odd sort of shimmering in the corner, near the door leading to the bridge. At first he dismissed it as a glitch in his ocular implant, but then he saw it for a split-second out of his good eye, too. When he looked again, it was gone.

A shape moved rapidly towards Atton, like the heat haze made by an engine's exhaust. Acting on instinct, Kiven aimed his rifle at the shadowy figure and pulled the trigger.

The muzzle report made Atton jump, and a second later a falling body appeared out of thin air just half a metre behind him.

Atton let out a burst of foul language. Whoever their attacker was, he had been armed with a vibroblade and using a stealth field generator to cloak himself from sight. Had Kiven not shot him dead, Atton would have been run through a half-second later. This realisation was not lost on the smuggler.

"Wonderful! First mining droids, and now we've got _invisible_ people trying to kill us." Atton gave the body a kick. "And they look like they're wearing some kind of bondage gear." When Kiven gave him a disgusted look, he quickly realised he had provided a bit too much information. "Uh, not that _I'd_ know anything about that, of course..."

Kiven looked down at their assailant, trying not to notice the growing pool of blood beneath him. He was dressed completely in black, his head protected by a skull-like helmet with glowing red eyes, giving him a fearsome appearance. "The captain's log said they docked with a Sith ship, but the strike teams they sent aboard found nothing. I'm guessing these assassins cloaked themselves and came aboard the _Harbinger _without the crew's knowledge."

"It would seem that way," added Kreia. "That I did not sense them suggests they are capable of cloaking themselves from both sight and the Force. If they attack again I doubt we will be as fortunate as we were moments ago. I suggest we move quickly and without stopping."

So there were three groups after him: the Sith, the IUA, and the Exchange. And like a multi-landspeeder pileup, their plans had come crashing into one another here at Peragus. The Sith wanted him dead, the Exchange wanted him alive, and there was no telling what the IUA wanted him for, although it was probably something dubious.

And all he wanted was to go back to Hoth, though he knew by this point that it wasn't going to happen. His enemies would surely find him wherever he ran to.

But this thought only stirred up a grim sort of fatalism in his heart. If the Sith tracked him down and killed him, then so what? What did his life really matter? If the Jedi were teetering on the verge of extinction, then he wouldn't be able to save them. No one could. And if his body were found face-down in alley somewhere with a bottle in his hand, would anyone really care?

Kiven gave his head a shake. He would never got off this station if he succumbed to despair. If he were to die, then he would die on his own terms.

He grabbed the bolt handle of his rifle and cycled another round into the chamber. As bad as things looked, they could always be worse. Of all the wisdom Ruslan had imparted to him, that was one thing Kiven remembered most often. _"__It can always get worse, kid,_" he had said. "_And just when you think it can't, it will. That's the law of the universe._"


	4. Darkest Black

Chapter 4 – Darkest Black

* * *

><p>"Wait."<p>

Atton stopped them just as they neared the bridge exit hatch.

"What is it?"

"Rather than go running through a ship filled with invisible assassins, why don't we try using this ship's systems against them? We're on the bridge, so we should have access to pretty much everything."

Kiven turned around. "I'm listening."

"If I can override the safety protocols for the life support system," he explained, sitting down at one of the bridge stations, "then I should be able to depressurise every part of the ship except the bridge. After a minute or two, there'll be nothing breathing on this rust-bucket but us."

"Perhaps that would be the prudent course of action," said Kreia. "When we were attacked, I sensed that our assailant was drawing upon your connection to the Force like a parasite, using it to strengthen himself; an ability that has no doubt proven quite useful in hunting the Jedi. Being what it is, your strength in the Force make make them into impossible adversaries."

As she spoke, Kiven saw that here eyes were milky white, something he had only noticed just now. That suggested she was blind, but since she could obviously find her way around, that meant Kreia used the Force to see.

_ Just what sort of person am I dealing with here? _he thought. He was reasonably certain she was not a Jedi, and he was sure she was not a Sith due to her lack of homicidal tendencies towards him. An ex-Jedi like him, perhaps? Or an ex-Sith?

Atton reclined in his seat, looking entirely too comfortable. "Just sit tight for a minute or two, this might take a while." He started working the console, skipping through the numerous dire warnings thrown up by the ship's computer, asking him if he were _really_ sure that he wanted to depressurise every deck and doom everyone to rapid asphyxiation. "You know Kiven, when I told you about Darth Irenaceus, I forgot to tell you the weirdest part."

"Yeah? And what's that?"

"Like all Sith he had a master, some bugslut named Darth Revan. And we kept hearing all these crazy stories about him, like how he had once beaten a rancor to death with his bare hands, or how he had killed everyone in a city just by walking down the street shirtless. But that's not the strange part. See, everyone believed that Irenaceus had killed his master and declared himself the new Dark Lord."

"So? I believe that's standing operating procedure for the Sith."

"Yeah, but get this: it turned out that Darth Revan never existed. He was just a figment of Irenaceus' imagination."

That made very little sense to him. "Perhaps Irenaceus created this 'Darth Revan' as a propaganda figure, one who served to legitimise his rule. If he could kill such a powerful man, it would serve as proof that he was fit to reign as the Dark Lord of the Sith."

Atton shook his head. "No, I don't think so. I've met a few who people who deserted from his fleet, and they all said that he really believed that Darth Revan was real."

"If that's true, then who taught him the ways of the Sith? Contrary to what most people think, it's more than just carrying a red lightsaber and killing anyone who looks at you funny. He would have had to have learned it from someone_._"

"How would I know? Anyone who served under him is either dead or too ashamed of being associated with him to talk about it. It's amazing how many smart people got caught up in that whole business, like Saul Karath."

Before Kiven could ask who that was, a klaxon sounded, followed by a loud _whoosh_ as every part of the ship except the bridge depressurised. "Pure pazaak! Anyone waiting for us, their lungs are probably bursting right this very moment."

He spoke those words with a subtle glee in his voice that Kiven found disturbing. It was one thing to fight one's enemies, it was quite another thing to take joy in it.

After a minute or so, Atton re-pressurised the rest of the _Harbinger, _confident that all remaining Sith on-board had suffocated.

He was unaware that a true Sith had no need to breathe.

* * *

><p>It was as they were moving through the darkened corridors of the <em>Harbinger<em> that Kiven noticed something odd. Kreia and Atton seemed intent on staying behind, and at first he assumed that this was out of simple self-preservation – if anything attacked them, Kiven would bear the brunt of its wrath and the two of them could escape to safety.

But there was another, more troubling explanation. The manner in which they followed him suggested a tacit agreement amongst them that he was the leader of their little group, yet leadership was something he simply could not provide. The Mandalorian Wars had shattered whatever self-confidence he once possessed, and he was certain – as surely as the sun rising – that putting people under his leadership was dooming them to a grisly fate.

He only wished someone would have told him that before he led thirty Jedi to their deaths. They had believed so strongly in his "leadership" that they were willing to follow him to war against the Mandalorians despite his youth and utter lack of experience on the battlefield. Every one of them had been utterly confident that they could turn to the tide of the war.

_And now they're dead. Shows what I know._

It was not long before they started coming across the bodies of black-clad Sith assassins. Atton looked at their corpses with a smug expression of satisfaction, silently patting himself on the back for so cleverly outwitting them.

He was not so smug when one of the assassins suddenly leapt from the floor and swung at him with his vibroblade.

It was only by sheer luck that he avoided being cut in two. Atton raised his blaster to fire at his attacker, inadvertently blocking the assassin's vibroblade with his weapon. Before Kiven could raise his rifle, Kreia grabbed the assassin through the Force, slammed him against the bulkhead, then lifted him off his feet. A few seconds later his neck snapped with a sickening-sounding _crack._

Kiven glanced over at her, and saw no expression whatsoever on her face. She let the body fall in a heap, then carried on as if nothing had even happened.

He'd never seen anyone use the Force with such viciousness, which only strengthened his desire to leave this old woman far behind at the earliest possible opportunity.

"I fear these assassins are more resilient than I foresaw," she said calmly.

If there was such a thing as a second wind, then Kiven had to be on his sixth or seventh at least. The morphine injection he'd given himself earlier in the medbay was still doing its job of dulling the pain, but there was no telling how long it'd last. And assuming they got out of this alive, he dreaded to think of all the pain he'd be in when it wore off.

They encountered no resistance as they neared the aft quarters, and that struck Kiven as very strange. If these assassins were skilled enough in the Force to survive in a vacuum, they should have been making some effort to stop them...

...unless they were trying lure them into a trap.

The engine room was just ahead. All they had to do was find a way of opening up the refuelling lines and making their way back onto the station.

Kiven heard heavy footfalls behind him. He hesitated in turning around, knowing full well that he was going to find himself facing something awful.

"Jedi."

It was the some low, gravelly voice that he had heard in the captain's log, and the very sound of it stiffened the blood in his veins.

He made a slow about-face, and saw a man standing at the far end of the hallway. Yet it was not a man, but a corpse. A corpse with grey, cracked skin that was peeling off in places, revealing the festering necrotic flesh beneath. A corpse with half of its face burned and melted away, leaving only one of its eyes intact, the other a suppurating pustule. A corpse that moved and spoke in complete defiance of nature, still drenched in the blood of the crewmen he had slaughtered with his bare hands.

Kiven recoiled in horror. "Merciful fate..."

The aura of the dark side hung about him like a putrid stench. Normally he couldn't sense the Force in living things – that was his particular quirk as a Jedi – so how was it that he could sense the dark side in this man?

Unless he was a not a living thing at all.

"Your unsteady gaze, your clumsy gait," said the cadaverous ghoul. "You are intoxicated."

That wasn't true, but he wasn't about to suggest otherwise. Quickly recomposing himself, he answered with, "And you're ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober, while you'll still be ugly."

Kreia stepped forward. "This battle is mine alone. I am not defenceless. He cannot kill what he cannot see, and his power blinded him long ago. Go. I shall be along shortly." She spoke as though she were doing nothing more unusual than going to pick up groceries from the store.

"Fine by me!" Atton said, running into the engine room.

A part of Kiven wanted to stay and fight. Knowing what that fiend done to the crew of this ship, he would surely tear Kreia to pieces in seconds. But whether it was instinct or a mere sense self-preservation, he found himself following Atton.

* * *

><p>"I sense you, my master. You are faint...weak..."<p>

Kreia quietly withdrew the vibroblade she had kept concealed within her robes. "To a blinded one such as you, perhaps. You, who have learned nothing, accomplished nothing, and who shall shortly _become_ nothing. To not even realise how far you have fallen, _that_ is your failing."

"You do not speak. You _gibber._ I don't not hear your words. I do not hear your whispers crawl within my skull. I do not hear your teachings that weaken us all, the teachings that poisoned my soul with doubt. No more am I your apprentice."

Kreia's utter contempt for her former student was palpable. "Apprentice? Pah! An apprentice wishes to _learn, _while you wanted nothing but to possess knowledge. When you could not have the immediate gratification you desired, you instead chose to betray me."

"And now you run in search of the Jedi. They are all dead save one, and one drunken Jedi cannot stop the darkness that is to come."

"We shall see."

* * *

><p>"What the <em>frak<em> was that thing?" Atton exclaimed as he scrambled into the engineering section. "I've been from one end of this galaxy to the other, and I've _never_ seen anything like that...and I've seen a three-breasted Twi'lek!"

_Why do I have the feeling I really, _really_ don't want to learn about your past?_ Kiven thought. "Can you get the fuel lines open?"

Atton quickly located the console he needed to do just that. "Excuse me if I've said this before, but this sounds like a really bad idea."

"Stick with me, I'm full of bad ideas."

"Which is something you've made abundantly clear since you first showed up! Now, this'll just take a second or two; normally the fuel lines can't be accessed when during refuelling, otherwise you'd flood this entire compartment."

He silently urged Atton to work quickly. There was no telling how long Kreia could be able to hold out against her enemy, but he doubted it would be very long.

"Pure pazaak, I've got the maintenance hatch open. Now let's get out of here!"

Kiven didn't hear his last words, because at that instant it felt like his left hand had suddenly burst into flames. He let out a sharp cry and nearly fell from the catwalk as he twisted about in pain, saved only by the railing.

But when he looked down at his hand, it was completely unscathed.

"What...what the hell just happened? Have you completely _lost _it?"

"My hand...it...it felt like I just shoved it into a vat of molten carbonite. I think Kreia's been hurt...badly..." Somehow the telepathic between the two of him had allowed him to feel all the agony of her injuries, and that meant if she got herself killed...

"Well better her than us! Now snap out of it and let's get going!"

He did as Atton asked, though his hand still throbbed in pain. On the starboard fuel line there was a small access hatch, normally used by maintenance droids to scrub the conduits. Atton bent down and made his way inside with Kiven following closely behind, ever thankful to that shot of morphine he'd given himself. Getting into the refuelling line involved stooping low, almost kneeling, and without painkillers his bad back would have killing him right about now.

The conduit widened slightly when they neared the end, and that was when he saw a sight that lifted his spirits, something he was in desperate need of at this point.

"T3!"

The assassin droid had dumped T3-M4 into the fuel line, and to Kiven's immense relief he appeared to be relatively undamaged.

Atton looked almost disappointed that they found T3. "Huh, I was wondering when that little bucket of bolts would turn up. Looks like it's been hit with an ion blast and dumped here."

Kiven opened one of T3's access panels, and from there it was a simple matter of re-initialising the droid's system. T3 chirped in delight to know that his master was still alive, along with an expression of anger towards the HK droid that had disabled him.

"I know, I ran into it myself. It's slag now."

The noise T3 might as well have been translated as, "Serves it right, the quivering pile of unstable hacks."

"If you two are finished reminiscing," Atton said, "then we've got a ship to catch. We should be somewhere in the fuel depot, which isn't far from the hangar. Think you can make it? You're looking a little...wobbly."

"I...I don't know. The last few months on Hoth, I...I could barely get enough food. I'm surprised I haven't passed out already."

Atton opened up the fuel line hatchway and stepped out. "I still don't see why you chose that dismal wasteland to live on. If you wanted somewhere to hide there are far better planets you could have gone to."

Kiven took offence to that. Hoth was a world of great beauty, at least from a certain point of view. "'Dismal'? 'Wasteland'? It was my home!"

"If you say so."

The journey to the hangar passed by as a blur to his fractured nerves. All he could think about was how much better things would be once they were off this rock, how much he wanted to just lie down and sleep, and most of all, how he needed to get some decent food in his stomach. That was assuming "normal" food was even palatable to him anymore.

A few minutes later there were in a control room overlooking the hangar, and when Kiven looked through the window he had his first glimpse at their transportation.

"There she is, the _Fall From Grace,_" Atton said, a measure of awe in his voice.

He recognised the ship as a Nucleon, a long-running line of luxury yachts manufactured by Kuat Drive Yards. Like most luxury starships, it was designed to be aesthetically-pleasing as possible. The individual hull plates were polished to a brilliant sheen, and great care had been taken to ensure that the joints between each plate were invisible. The ship itself possessed a graceful, slender profile, with four engines mounted on small "wings" near the back and a pair of parallel fins atop the aftmost section. Taken together, the _Fall From Grace_ looked like it was moving fast, even when it was standing still. Kiven guessed that the engineers had deliberately designed it to evoke the look of an ancient aeroplane."

"'_Fall From Grace'_...interesting name for a ship," he remarked, breathing heavily. "Wonder why they chose it?"

"No idea," Atton replied with a shrug. "Probably because it sounded cool. Now let's get going before Darth Sleeps-With-Vibroblades catches up to us!"

The ship was even more magnificent up close. It looked like it had not been built so much as sculpted, and Kiven could only speculate as to how much it was worth. At any rate they had more important things to worry about, such as the Sith soldiers rapidly making their way towards the hangar. He didn't know where they had been hiding on the _Harbinger_ or how they had caught up with them so fast, but now wasn't the time to be asking questions.

Panting and wheezing, Kiven struggled to follow Atton and T3 up the _Fall From Grace's_ boarding ramp. It did not came as a surprise to find that the interior of the ship had been shown the same care and attention to aesthetics as the exterior. The designers had taken great pains to ensure that no conduits, pipes, or wires were visible, covering the walls with elaborate wooden boiseries and panelling. Instead of bare durasteel deck plating, there was red carpeting that felt as soft and luxurious as a wampa's fur.

It felt almost criminal to be trudging over it with his dirty boots.

Atton made his way to the cockpit and sat himself in one of the large, high-backed seats that were upholstered in fine Corellian leather. "It's going to take some time to get the engines get started," he said, busily working the touchscreen controls. "There should be a gunner's station somewhere back there; get on it and give that laser cannon a workout!" Suddenly, Atton swung the seat around and stood up, a wild look in his eyes. "No! You sit down, _I'll_ man the laser cannon!"

He pushed his way past Kiven and sat down at the gunner's station. The _Fall From Grace_ was armed with a retractable underslung laser cannon beneath the bow, and when it emerged from its hiding place the attacking Sith soldiers instantly turned and ran for cover.

Atton wasn't about to let them get away. He squeezed the trigger and sent forth a burst of laser fire that cut the fleeing Sith to ribbons, blasting their remains halfway across the hangar bay floor.

"_How do you like me now? Ha ha ha ha ha!_"

Now Kiven was sure there was something wrong with the smuggler. The sheer delight he took in slaughtering those men was completely at odds with his jocular, sarcastic demeanour. He quietly sat down in the copilot's seat and watched with growing dismay as Atton gleefully blew away another group of Sith who had tried to take cover behind a stack of crates. Unfortunately, the _Fall From Grace's_ laser cannon was more than capable of blasting through their feeble shelter and scattering their atomised remains on the bulkhead behind them.

As if by magic, Kreia appeared behind them. Though she was trying to conceal it, he could see that her left hand had been severed.

"What the...how...how did you survive?"

"Save your questions for another time," she answered angrily. "The _Harbinger_ will no doubt pursue us once we leave the hangar. We must put as much distance between us and them as possible."

Atton jumped back into the pilots seat. "They'd be crazy to shoot at us. One stray shot and this whole asteroid field will go nova!"

Kiven wanted to reach across the centre console and smack him. "You expect the Sith to show _restraint?_"

"No, but I'd expect them to try to _avoid_ blowing themselves up!"

The whine of the engines grew steadily louder, and the instant the start-up routine was finished Atton fired the landing repulsorlifts, raising the _Fall From Grace_ from the hangar floor. He brought the ship around to face the magcon field, then throttled up the engines.

The force of the sudden acceleration pushed Kiven back into his seat, impressing upon him just how fast this luxury yacht truly was.

Atton looked over the sensor readout with dismay. "Looks like Kreia was right – that ship's on a pursuit course. Maybe if we-"

A streak of green laser fire streaked past the cockpit window, and Atton wrenched the controls to the side to avoid being blown out of the sky. The _Harbinger_ was bringing every single forward-facing weapon to bear on the _Fall From Grace,_ and it was only their speed and the narrow profile of their ship that spared them from destruction.

"If they hit us, we're dead," he muttered as he desperately weaved the ship back forth. "If they _don't_ hit us, we're still dead. Frakked both ways...story of my life!"

A burst of fire struck a nearby asteroid, causing it to disappear in a brilliant flash of light. The explosion hurled smaller chunks of rock in all directions, forcing Atton to veer away sharply. T3 shrieked and whined, then let out a series of frantic chirps and beeps. Kiven couldn't quite understand all of it, but the gist of it was that their manoeuvring was dangerously close to exceeding the _Fall From Grace's_ design envelope, that they were all going to die a horrible, fiery death any second now, and to top it all off, that Atton was an idiot who wore stupid clothes and who smelled bad...or at least he would if T3 had olfactory sensors installed.

The insulting tone of T3's protests was not lost on Atton. "Someone shut that trash compactor up!"

T3 replied, in a way unique to droids, that Atton could go frak himself.

Through all of this Kreia remained remarkably calm. "What of the asteroids? We can fire on them as well, can we not?"

Kiven doubted there was anyone left alive on the Peragus Mining Station, but he'd be damned if he was going to be responsible for another planet-shattering cataclysm. "No! Just keep trying evade them until we can make the jump to hyperspace."

Atton said nothing, but Kiven could almost sense his disappointment at being denied the opportunity to unleash some wanton destruction. He threaded the _Fall From Grace_ through a cluster of closely-packed asteroids while the _Harbinger _continued its onslaught, striking one of the asteroids with a barrage of turbolaser fire.

The blast shook the _Fall From Grace,_ causing it to pitch forward violently. But the worst was yet to come. Kiven could not see what was happening behind their ship, but he could feel through the Force the chain reaction that was starting. And there was nothing that could stop it as it swept through the asteroid field like a wave.

"Hold on!" Atton yelled, struggling to regain control. "This is going to get a little rocky!"

Amazingly, the _Harbinger_ kept firing, seemingly oblivious to the tide of destruction that was rapidly approaching. It was not even aiming at them any more, just firing wildly as if the ship itself were throwing a fit of rage.

The second they were clear of the field, Atton pushed the hyperdrive lever forward, and the stars in the cockpit window turned to streaks.

But not before Kiven felt Peragus II die.

With the planet's core exposed by the earlier mining accident, all it took was one sufficiently energetic impact to ignite every last bit of Peragian fuel on that rock. The rapid, sequential detonations taking place in the Peragus asteroid field handily provided the necessary impact.

Bad news travelled fast, especially when it was in the form of a shockwave.

In less than a second Peragus II was shattered into billions of pieces. The sudden expulsion of superheated gas pulverised everything in the asteroid field, including the _Harbinger._ It was difficult to say what destroyed it – it might have been the concussion of the blast, or it might have been the fragments of Peragus II that were closer to the epicentre of the explosion and thus attempted to escape _through_ the ship. In either case, the _Harbinger_ was swiftly reconfigured into a state in which space travel was no longer an option.

* * *

><p>"Ever been so mad you blew up an entire planet?"<p>

Kiven was in no mood for Atton's jokes. Word of this catastrophe would soon spread, and he knew with absolutely certainty that blame would fall on him when people learned that had been present on the Peragus Mining Station.

"So now that no one's trying to kill us, perhaps one of you could explain to me what's going on?" Atton continued. "Because between assassin droids, a Sith Lord that looks like he snuggles with a vibrosaw every night, and a Republic warship using us for target practice, I think I was better off in my cell. Even _if_ I didn't have any clothes on."

"That'll have to wait until morning," Kiven said, struggling to stand up from the co-pilot's chair. It was so damned _comfortable_ he was in danger of falling asleep right then and there. "I need to get cleaned up, and then I'm going to have a nice, long rest."

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea. You kinda smell like a bantha, no offence."

Kiven made his way past Kreia and into the rear sections of the _Fall From Grace_. The lighting throughout the ship was very subdued, which suited him just fine. Perhaps it was a childhood spent in the dark depths of Nar Shaddaa, or maybe it was just one of his many physical defects, but he had always suffered from a painful sensitivity to light.

Unsure of where to go, he took the first door on his left. It led into the yacht's master quarters, and while he felt it a bit presumptuous to take the largest and most luxurious room on the ship for himself, he was far too tired to care.

The room was appointed in a manner similar to the rest of the ship, with wooden panelling on the walls and soft carpeting on the floor. A trio of windows, sloping inwards to follow the contour of the hull, provided a broad vista of the outside, although they had turned opaque during the ship's transit through hyperspace.

His eyes were drawn towards to the large bed at the far side of the room, which was covered with fine silk bedsheets and a heavy duvet. It all looked so warm and inviting that Kiven knew he'd fall asleep the instant he laid himself down on it. After ten years of spending the night in either a dingy hotel room or on the cold, hard ground in a cave on Hoth, he was more than willing to allow himself this one luxury.

On the wall behind the bed was a large painting depicting a golden-haired woman dressed in a dark red bodice and sporting a pair of wings on her back. She gazed down at the viewer with a kindly expression on her face, creating the impression that she was watching over whoever slept in the bed below. Kiven wondered if the painting had been put up by the administrator of the Peragus Mining Facility, or if it belonged to the pirate who had stolen the _Fall From Grace._

He set his rifle in the corner and considered just flopping himself down on the bed. But before he went to sleep, however, he had to do something about his dreadfully shabby appearance. The master quarters had their own refresher, and Kiven looked forward to getting inside a sonic shower and washing away the several years' worth of accumulated dirt and grime that covered his body. Yet when it came to personal bathing, the builders of this ship weren't about to settle for anything as mundane as a simple sonic shower. Instead, they had installed an actual bathtub, a ludicrous bit of opulence for a starship of this size. There would have to be a tank to store the water, Kiven reckoned, along with a heating and filtration system.

He doffed his wampa fur coat and saw to his great dismay that all the running and crawling about on the Peragus Mining Facilty had opened up his wounds. The wampa's claws had left three deep lacerations, now scabbed over, and he hadn't spent enough time in the kolto tank for them to close up fully. The left side of his chest was smeared with blood, some of it dry, some of it still wet, and it had stained the inside of his wampa fur coat. He definitely wasn't going to be wearing _that_ thing any longer.

When he had his first glimpse at himself in the mirror, he was shocked at how terrible he looked. With his grimy face and dirty, unkempt hair, "crazy homeless man" was almost too kind a description. Amongst the toiletries in the refresher was a shaver, and Kiven spent the next few minutes cutting off his beard.

Once he was completely clean-shaven, he started filling the bathtub with warm water. While that was happening he removed the last of his dirty, tattered clothing, trying not to notice just how thin and bony his body was.

And still trying to forget how he had tried to make friends with a wampa.

After the tub was full, Kiven slowly lowered himself into the warm water. It was not an exaggeration to say that this was the first truly pleasurable sensation he had experienced since his exile. He spent the next half-hour cleansing his skin and hair of every bit of dirt, grime, and dried blood, and by the time he was finished he looked almost respectable. For a second he thought about searching the ship for a kolto patch to put on his wounds, but he decided that could wait until tomorrow.

He got up out of the tub, his hair clinging to his skin. Kiven had always been proud of his long, black hair that he never cut or bound up in any way. As with his foster-father's pendant, the Jedi had often given him a hard time about it, but he had been light-years away from caring.

Once he dried himself off, he started looking around the master quarters for a decent set of underclothes. Luckily for him, the previous owner had kept a full set of clothing stored inside a large wardrobe. He quickly located some clean underwear, ignoring for the moment that was essentially stealing clothes from a dead man, and once he had put them on Kiven immediately threw himself down on the bed.

By the stars, he'd never felt anything so wonderful. A clean body, clean clothes, and a clean bed. It had been ten years since he'd had all three of those things at the same time. In less than a minute he was fast asleep beneath the watchful gaze of the golden-haired woman.

* * *

><p>Some time later – he did not know how much later – Kiven awoke. Then he tried to move. This was a mistake.<p>

Now that the morphine injection had worn off, the pain of his wounds and his bad back had returned with a vengeance. It hurt just to move his arms or legs, and from that he concluded that there was no point in even trying to move. The bed was just so comfortable, and Atton and Kreia weren't the sort of people worth getting out of bed for anyway. Though the probability of it happening was exceedingly remote, he hoped that those two had suddenly and inexplicably vanished from existence, leaving him and T3 alone on the ship.

But while he had no desire whatsoever the leave the bed, he was acutely aware of just how terribly hungry he was. Trapped between the need to eat and the desire to stay in bed...was there a more terrible choice to be faced with? Maybe he could get T3 to fetch some food for him...

No, that would be taking the easy way out. After much struggling and a few aborted attempts, Kiven finally managed the exceedingly difficult task of _sitting up._ But no sooner had he overcome that challenge than he was faced with an even greater challenge: _standing up. _And once he was done with that, there was still one more obstacle in his way: _getting dressed._

So here he was, a former Jedi Knight and veteran of the Mandalorian Wars, struggling to carry out a task that most people didn't even have to think about. At least no one was around to see his pitiful state.

He slid over to the corner of the mattress nearest the wall and grabbed hold of the bedpost. Gripping it tightly, Kiven tried to force himself upward into a standing position. He immediately regretted his decision.

Few people would argue that the worst feeling in the galaxy was that brief moment between stubbing your toe and feeling the pain. _How much will it hurt _this_ time?_ he thought in that brief half-second.

The hurt came as a sharp, burning spasm all the way up his body. He closed his eyes, a sharp groan escaping his lips while he struggled to remain upright. If he let go of the bedpost and fell back, he would have to do this all over again. His teeth clenched tightly, Kiven summoned up whatever meagre strength he possessed and finally got himself standing on his own two feet. His back was sending little daggers of pain up and down his body, as were the gashes on his side, but he had triumphed valiantly over these adversaries and achieved a fully-upright posture. For nearly everyone, getting out of bed was a mundane affair. For Kiven, it was an epic struggle worthy of song and saga.

His eyes turned upwards towards the painting above the bed, where the winged, golden-haired woman was still staring down at him. _You poor dear,_ she seemed to be saying. _How terrible it is that you must live like this._

He started walking towards the wardrobe. _The bed is large enough for two,_ the woman continued. _You would know happiness if you could find someone to share it with you._

"Not bloody likely," he muttered to himself.

For the next few minutes he looked through the wardrobe, once more trying to ignore the fact that the clothes inside belonged to a dead man. It did not take him long to choose his outfit: a white shirt, black pants, and a black leather jacket. His biggest concern was shoes. Like so much else, they weren't something he had given much thought to prior to his back injury. Now he was terribly concerned about finding a pair that would cause him the least amount of pain.

He went to retrieve his foster-father's pendant from the refresher, and quickly slipped it around his neck. The wampa fur coat lay in a heap near the bathtub, and with some measure of disgust he brought it back out into the bedroom. It was dirty and smelly, and his first instinct was to toss it into an incinerator somewhere.

Kiven turned it upside-down and shook the contents of the pockets out onto the carpet. There was the pair of crystals he'd taken from his cave on Hoth, some bullets for his rifle, and his beat-up, non-functioning datapad.

He set the crystals and bullets atop the dresser and looked over the datapad. A brief examination revealed that its power cell was drained. Maybe there was a replacement somewhere on this ship, but he was in no hurry to find one. There was nothing on the datapad anyway, except his journal entries from the seven years he'd spent on Hoth. He didn't want to go back and read them. His sanity had been slowly eroding over that time, and he had no desire to see how far he had gone.

_You tried...to make friends...with a WAMPA!_

So far he had gotten out of bed and gotten himself dressed. Now all the remained was overcoming the third and final task – getting something to eat.

He turned left after stepping out of the master quarters, and the passageway led to a sort of central hold, for a lack of a better term, that was dominated by a large holoprojector in the middle. The aft corridor led to the engine compartment, while the port side corridor led to what appeared to be a smallish cargo hold. Turning left from the entrance to the main hold, he finally discovered the _Fall From Grace's_ dining area. Inside the medium-sized room was a table large enough to seat six, along a with a high-end food synthesizer and Corellian fried ice cream fryer. Beside the synthesizer was a large refrigeration unit, and Kiven could barely restrain himself from tearing it open and devouring whatever he found inside.

Inside, the first thing he noticed was an unopened bottle of Tarisian ale sitting on the door rack. Without thinking he reached inside and grabbed the bottle, his only intention being to uncork it and down the entirety of its contents.

_Wait,_ he thought,_ you just woke up and your first thought is to get drunk? What is wrong with you?_

If Ruslan were still here, he'd be shaking his head in disappointment.

_Aren't you supposed to be better than this?_

He put the bottle of wine back. No point in giving Atton more ammunition to mock him with.

His hunger was so great that Kiven wanted nothing more than to gorge himself. But he knew that if he did that he would likely start throwing up all over the room, so he restricted to whatever non-alcoholic beverages he could find in the refrigeration unit. Once he was reasonably sure that he wouldn't regurgitate whatever he ate, he started on solid foods. For the next few minutes he fed himself tiny morsels, finding that even the blandest of foods tasted strange.

There a flimsi on the table that he hadn't noticed before, and when Kiven picked it up he nearly choked.

"_Merciful fate!_"

It was a drawing of a brown-haired woman in a black, skin-tight bodice and fishnet stockings, holding a whip in her hands and posing with her leg up on a chair. The woman's face was familiar, but his mind couldn't quite recall her name. Luckily (or perhaps unluckily) the text at the bottom of the flimsi did the work for him:

_ BASTILA SHAN – BONDAGE QUEEN OF THE SITH_

Kiven remembered Bastila well, despite the two of them having barely spoken to one another and holding each other in mutual contempt. Not only had the Jedi Council held her up as an example of the ideal Jedi, she also possessed an extraordinarily rare ability known as Battle Meditation. Predictably, this had all gone straight to her head, and Kiven had found her to be utterly insufferable. He recalled, with a mixture of amusement and shame, how he would sneak into her quarters every day while she was training and use his lightsaber to shave a millimetre or two off the legs of her chair. The daily reduction in height was so small that Bastila wouldn't notice it, but over time would she would come to believe that she was shrinking.

He turned the flimsi over and, having had his fill of food for now, started looking about a kolto patch to put on his wounds, making a mental note to shred that horrid flimsi some time later. The universe had quite clearly gotten bored with itself and decided that now would be the best time to fully let loose. And here he was, caught in the middle of it all.

Once he'd found a medpac and applied it to his scabbed-over lacerations, Kiven headed to the cockpit.

* * *

><p>"Spast, for a second there I barely recognised you! Glad to see you've cleaned yourself; we'll need to make a good impression once we reach Telos. I have a feeling that little planet-busting stunt back there won't go unnoticed."<p>

Kiven looked down at Atton while he leaned against his seat. "Why are we heading to Telos?"

"'Cause it's the only location stored in this ship's astrogation system. That pirate, Morgan Sundari, she must have wiped the thing clean before abandoning ship. Smugglers and pirates do it all the time so that no one can find out where they've been. And from what I understand, the Peragus Mining Facility is a major supplier to the Telosian Restoration Project, which probably explains why it's the only system this ship can fly to. The administrator probably didn't have the time to add any more locations before he snuffed it."

"Tell me about this pirate, Morgan."

"They called her the 'Pirate of the Perlemian', since that was the trade route she preyed on. I actually met her once, and I must say...she's kind of like the female version of you."

He took offence at that. "What? How am I like a pirate?"

"Just in the way she looked and sounded, that's all. I mean, she had long black hair like you do, and her voice...by the immortal gods of the Sith...that _voice!_"

Kiven wasn't above teasing him. "So you're saying I sound like a woman, is that it?"

"What? No! What I meant was, you both sound like you're the very avatar of sex itself. Just putting that out there."

This conversation had turned awkward very quickly. "I think you're overstating the matter."

"No, I'm not. With a voice like yours, you'd make women melt in their drawers. And make a few men feel very confused."

Kiven sighed. "Why is it that everyone always talks about the way I look and not who I am?"

Atton laughed. "Now you _are_ starting to sound like a woman."

An uncomfortable silence hung over the cockpit for a few seconds.

"You know, I've been meaning to ask you something for a while now," said Atton. "You used to be a Jedi, right? So where's your lightsaber? There were a lot of times back on Peragus where we really could have used one."

"A lightsaber is a symbol of one's status as Jedi," he explained. "I was forced to give mine up when I was exiled."

"Funny, I thought you Jedi were practically married to those things. Like how you'd give yours a girl's name, because that was closest thing to female companionship you were ever going to get?"

"Atton..." he said with an angry glower.

"I was just joking, geez! So was yours a singe-bladed lightsaber or one of those whirly-twirly double-bladed ones?"

"Single-bladed," he grumbled, quickly tiring of this line of inquiry.

"Uh-huh. So what colour was it?"

"Green. Look, is there some point to all these questions?"

"I'm just curious, that's all. I have to ask, though, does the colour of your lightsaber blade actually mean anything? I've always wondered about that."

"If you must know, Atton, the blue lightsaber is traditionally associated with those whose focus is on combat and the martial arts. The green lightsaber is for those who seek mastery of the Force, and red lightsabers are almost always used by the Sith alone. But...red, green, or blue...it doesn't really matter in the end."

"Just like that last hologame I...nah, I'm not going to make that joke. Too easy."

Kiven frowned. "What joke?"

"Never mind. So I guess your lightsaber is probably sitting in a drawer somewhere, huh?"

Their conversation was once again veering into unpleasant territory. "I know _exactly_ who has it," Kiven said, unable to conceal the hatred in his voice. "I will not pollute the air of this ship by uttering _her_ name!"

His caustic tone took Atton off-guard. "Sorry I asked. But if it's any consolation, whoever has your lightsaber is probably dead along with all the other Jedi."

He was probably right, Kiven thought. "It doesn't really matter, though. I was always hopeless with a lightsaber, and I have no intention of making another one."

Kreia's voice interrupted them. "I must speak with you, Kiven. Preferably alone, where will be free from the opinions of imbeciles and fools."

Atton remained silent, but Kiven could sense him uttering curses beneath his breath. "Very well," he said, wondering when an opportunity to ditch this old woman would present itself. One thing he had learned growing up on Nar Shaddaa was how to tell when someone had a hidden agenda, and that certainly described Kreia. There was not a trace of warmth in her voice, and every time he saw her he could almost see her spinning little webs in her mind, putting the pieces of grandiose scheme into place.

She led him into one of the _Fall From _Grace's smaller guest quarters. "No doubt you have many questions you want answered," she began. "Secluding yourself on Hoth spared you from the assassin's blade but left you ignorant of galactic events."

"Before we get into that, I need to know why I felt like I was losing my hand when you lost yours. I've been hurt plenty of times before, but I...I've never felt anything like that."

"I am hardly surprised. It is for the same reason that you could hear my thoughts despite the distance between us. I did not expect you to share my pain, however; were I able to, I would have shielded you from it."

That was not exactly reassuring. "And what if one of us had died? What then?"

"I do not know. It possible that it would have resulted in the death of the other, though I would not endeavour to test this hypothesis...nor should you."

"But how could this happen? Force bonds take months or years to develop."

"I confess that its nature eludes me. Perhaps it came about when we were brought so closely to the brink of death, or perhaps you possess some proclivity towards the creation of such bonds. In the end, though, the origin of our...connection...is immaterial."

_So that means we're stuck together, then? Lovely._ "That's not what I wanted to ask you about, though." There were many, many burning questions floating about in Kiven's head at the moment, so he started with the one that burned the brightest. "I want to know how someone like Merdinus Deculo became the Dark Lord of the Sith."

She smiled at him ever so slightly. "I suspected that would be the question foremost on your mind. It is a rather sad tale, is not?"

Kiven started pacing about, as standing in one place too long made his back ache. "'Sad'? That man..." He trailed off for a second, shuddering at the memory of Merdinus' vacuous, idiotic smile. "He...he treated the Force like it was a _toy!_ He didn't care about learning the ways of the Jedi; all he wanted was power. He'd stand before the Jedi Council, smiling at them, swearing that he wanted nothing more than to uphold peace and justice throughout the galaxy, and they _couldn't see through him!_" Their discussion was stirring up all his old grudges and animosities, and Kiven became increasingly agitated. "Because he _smiled_ at them! The Council was completely fooled by his glib, superficial charm, but if you saw his face when it was at rest, when he wasn't performing for anyone, you could see what he truly was: a black-eyed, slit-mouthed, treacherous little _snake!_ He was the triumph of image over truth."

"And so you have answered your own question, Kiven. Did you think the Jedi were the only people he fooled? As deeply as he drank from the well of ignorance, Irenaceus was an actor who knew how to conceal his weakness behind a veil of geniality and false sincerity. He knew where to stand, how to deliver his lines, and how to wait for the applause line. The vast majority of those who followed him to war against the Republic never met him face-to-face, but they heard the broadcasts he would make to his forces. In them he would laugh, he would joke, he would smile, and they found themselves laughing along with him. He gave his followers licence to indulge in their psychotic urges, to express their cruelty, their malice, and their lust for war and conquest. He permitted them to become as beasts, and so it is hardly surprising that few were willing to question him."

"But if I could see through him, others must have, too."

"Many throughout the Republic and beyond knew exactly what sort of man Irenaceus was, and when they saw the Jedi suffering defeat after defeat at his hands they lost faith in the Order. They blamed the Jedi for creating their own enemy and dragging the rest of the galaxy into a conflict they themselves were responsible for. You will find, Kiven, that your status as a Jedi will not grant you the respect it once did."

_Rubbish. The only time people ever respected me was when I was on stage singing,_ he thought. "But it had to have come crashing down sooner or later. An edifice built on lies cannot endure."

"Indeed it did, though Irenaceus' downfall was as much due to betrayal from within than his enemies without. And his defeat happened in a place that is quite familiar to you...Malachor."

His eyes darted towards the exit. Malachor was not a matter he was willing to discuss with her or anyone, so he quickly changed the subject. "And now the Jedi are gone. But I refuse to believe that it was Irenaceus' doing alone! No, he merely kicked at the rotten timbers that were barely holding the house up. The Jedi Order was crumbling long before he showed up."

"You speak the truth. And with your essays and polemics you attempted to bring this truth to light, and despite all your efforts you were ignored. I must ask...what did you hope to accomplish? You were struggling against forces that had been in motion for centuries. The only way you could have saved the Jedi was if you had torn its soul out by its roots. They could not change, and so they died. Now that the Jedi are lost, it remains to be seen if the Republic shall meet a similar fate. The only alternative to a changed society...is darkness."

Kiven stopped pacing about. "The Republic may have its flaws, but the galaxy will be far worse off if it collapses. Something must be done to preserve it." What that "something" was, however, he could not say.

Now it was Kreia's turn to start pacing, and he got the sense that she was getting into the heart of what she _really_ wanted to tell him. "If the Republic is to be saved, then you must understand the nature of those who seek to destroy it."

"What's to understand about the Sith?" he said. "They're little more than amoral thugs."

"On the contrary, the Sith are an _intensely_ moral people. They possess an absolute sense of right and wrong, of who is friend and foe. Tell me, how much do you know about their origins?"

"Just what I've read in the Jedi Archives – that they splintered from the Jedi Order millennia ago, founding their own order on Korriban."

Kreia nodded. "You no doubt know the historical facts, but history is far more than mere dates and places. You see, when the Sith first split from the Jedi, the conflict was ultimately centred around the question of identity. In the minds of the Sith, the Jedi had come to be identified with corruption, stagnation, and decay, and thus they chose to break away. And in doing so their identity coalesced around the idea of the 'Other' - a hated enemy whose very existence they opposed, who was to be painted blacker than the darkest black. Thus the Sith's very identity was founded on war. But at its heart it is a hollow thing, possessing form without content, shadow without substance. When your very being is based solely on opposition to something, are you truly aware of what you are and what you stand for? After all, what would a master be without a slave?"

"You speak as though the Jedi did not suffer from the same black-and-white thinking. Their 'identity' was every bit as hollow as that of the Sith."

"And it filled them with anger and hatred, something you know well. If there is one thing you must learn from what I have said, it is this: all forms of violence are a struggle for identity. A people, a culture, a civilisation...they all achieve definition through conflict. For centuries the Republic has gone unchallenged, labouring onwards like some stagnant beast. Now that its weakness has been exposed, its survival is an open question, one that depends on its willingness to seek the truth. And to a people in decline, there is no greater enemy than truth."

Kiven sighed. "This is a lot to take in. But...you make it sound as if all this depends on me. I am just one person...a failed Jedi who doesn't belong in civilised society. What does it matter if I live or die?"

He could sense Kreia's disappointment in his words. "If that is what you believe, then you have already failed. Know this: this is a battle unlike anything you have experienced before. It will not be won with weapons, with ships, or by force of arms. You are the battlefield, and if you do not know yourself, then you shall fall. And when that happens, the death of the Republic will be such a quiet thing, a whisper that shall herald the darkness to come."

_Whew! Strong stuff, eh?_ said a voice in the back of his head.

"Though your body is weak, your strength in the Force is great," Kreia continued, "but like a blade in the hands of a child, you have not been shown how to use it effectively. _That_ is what I offer to teach you. And perhaps, once you have learned something of yourself, you will find the answer to the one question that haunts you."

"And what question is that?"

"It was written on your face when I first uttered the word 'Malachor'. You know of what I speak."

If this woman wasn't actively reading his mind right now, she was doing a very good job of impersonating someone who was. He spoke the question almost robotically: "'Why was I the only one who lived?'"

She did not answer, and assumed a meditative posture on the floor. "We have spoken enough for now. I would see to that fool in the cockpit, and ensure that he does not veer from our destination."

"He is not a fool, but there is something odd about him."

As if flipping a switch, Kreia's tone immediately turned acerbic. "He is an imbecile! His path began in degeneracy and proceeds ever downwards from there. His thoughts are slippery, and I do not trust him...nor should you."

Despite all she had said, it was Kreia's last words that stuck in his mind. There was a hatefulness in her voice that unnerved him, and it only intensified his desire to leave her behind at the earliest opportunity. But there were so many questions he still wanted answered: who was that Sith they had encountered on the _Harbinger? _Who had taught Irenaceus the ways of the Force if his "master" Darth Revan had never existed? And what had been Kreia's role in all of this? On that last question, Kiven suspected he wasn't going to get a straight answer out of her.

When he returned to the cockpit, he saw to his dismay that Atton had discovered the scandalous picture of Bastila and posted it on the bulkhead near the pilot's seat.

It was hardly a good start to the day.


	5. The Invisible Girl

Chapter 5 – The Invisible Girl

* * *

><p>"So...how's our passenger? Still alive, or has she finally succumbed to the ravages of ageing? Please tell me she has."<p>

"Surprisingly eloquent, if a touch cryptic."

Atton put his hands behind his head and reclined in the pilot's seat. "What, did she give you an earful of 'Jedi Speak'? '_Make me one with everything_'...said the Jedi to the sandwich vendor. And when he asks for change, the vendor replies, '_True change only comes from within_'. I swear, it's too easy to make fun of you people. If you can really see the future, you should be at the pazaak tables."

Kiven despised gambling, not because of any moral objection to the practice, but merely for the painful associations in his mind. His father, his _true_ father, had a habit of losing whatever meagre credits he acquired at one gambling den or another, and without fail Kiven would find himself the target of his father's rage and frustration.

"So how old do you think she is?" Atton asked, jarring Kiven from his thoughts. "I get the feeling she was a real looker once, but she must have had some hard living to make creases like that. She looks like a piece of fruit that's been left out in the sun too long."

He did not bother to answer his question. The _Fall From Grace_ dropped out of hyperspace with a barely-perceptible shudder, and outside the cockpit window stood the dying world of Telos. Now that he could see it for himself, Kiven knew Atton had not been exaggerating when had talked of Irenaceus "bombing it into oblivion." The visible portions of the planet's surface looked as barren and lifeless as an asteroid, but that wasn't what his eyes were focussed on.

"There it is, Citadel Station," Atton said. "After the Sith turned the planet into a wasteland, the Republic built it as part of a project to make Telos liveable again. Don't think it has much a future now, though."

"What are you talking about?"

"Peragus was a major supplier of fuel to the project, but now that it's been struck with a bad case of 'blown-up-itis' I can't see them carrying on for much longer."

Kiven remained silent as the station grew larger in the cockpit window. It did not resemble a space station in the traditional sense, but rather an armoured layer that covered a large portion of Telos. When the _Fall From Grace_ drew nearer, he could make out rows up rows of boxy structures arrayed atop an enormous durasteel lattice, suggesting that this entire station was of a modular construction.

He tried to craning his head to get a better look, only to find himself staring at the flimsi with Bastila's picture on it. "Atton, could you please take that down? Bastila was a Jedi, and I don't think she'd want to be remembered like this."

Atton rolled his eyes. "Well if she's dead like the rest of the Jedi, then it's not doing any harm, is it?"

Kiven crossed his arms. "I found you naked in prison cell. If you died tomorrow, would you want _that_ to be the one thing people remembered you for?"

He yanked the flimsi down from the bulkhead. "Fine, have it your way," he grumbled.

Before landing, Kiven searched through the master quarters for some money, knowing he would likely need some on Citadel Station. There was only a few hundred credits he could find, but he figured that it ought to be enough. He left his rifle in his quarters, knowing that carrying such a large, conspicuous weapon would only raise suspicion. Knowing that there was a bounty on the Jedi, he would do what he had learned to do growing up on Nar Shaddaa: keep his head down, his eyes forward, and do nothing to draw any attention to himself whatsoever. Somehow, though, Kiven suspected that would be easier said than done.

* * *

><p>True to his suspicions, no sooner had they stepped out of the <em>Fall From Grace<em> than a woman's voice came through the hangar's loudspeakers.

"_Attention: this is Citadel Station Bay Control, dock module 126._"

Atton froze in his tracks. "I don't like the sound of this."

"_Please remain where you are; __Lieutenant Dol Grenn will be there shortly to meet you._"

A short while later a grey-haired man soon approached then, flanked by a pair of armed security officers. Kiven tried to gauge their reaction upon seeing him, watching for any sign of recognition on their faces. If they knew he was the one who had caused the destruction of the Malachor system, then they would surely pin the destruction of the mining station on him, too. Of course, it didn't matter if they recognised him or not when a simple HoloNet search of his name would turn up ample evidence of his dubious past.

"I'm Lieutenant Grenn, Telos Security Force. I'm under orders to take you into custody in regards to the destruction of the Peragus Mining Facility."

Before Kiven could speak on word in his defence, the lieutenant fixed his gaze on Atton. "_You..._" he growled, his expression a mix of loathing and revulsion.

Kiven glanced over at him in dismay. "Atton, please don't tell me you have some outstanding warrant for your arrest!"

Atton raised his hands. "Look, lieutenant, whatever you're thinking, you've got the wrong guy. Really!"

"Don't think you can lie to me, you scum! I never forget a face, and I know you were the one in that 'Pure Pazaak' holovid. If the law didn't forbid me I would shoot you dead where you stand!"

He continued to protest his innocence. "Look, I'm not the one you're after. I just happen to bear an uncanny resemblance to him. Trust me, I get this all the time."

Kiven stepped between the two men. "Would someone please tell me what's going on here?"

Grenn gave him an incredulous look. "Have you been living under a rock for the past five years? This man took part in an obscene, pornographic holovid called 'Pure Pazaak', and the only reason he isn't serving a triple life sentence right now is because there weren't any specific laws against what he did." He paused for a second before adding, "But there sure are now, thank the Force!"

"Look, I wasn't in any holovid. You've got to believe me!" It would have been clear to even the most sheltered individual that Atton's pleas of innocence rang hollow.

"Well," said Kiven, "it was called 'Pure Pazaak', and I _have_ heard you use that phrase on more than one occasion..."

Atton gritted his teeth. "_Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up!_"

The lieutenant turned to face Kiven. "Regardless, I have been ordered to take you into custody while we conduct a full investigation into the destruction of the mining facility. Your ship's registry matches that of a vessel belonging the facility's administrator, and your sudden arrival here places you under a great deal of suspicion."

"Please don't tell me I'm going to jail again," Atton moaned, shaking his head.

"At least you get to keep your clothes this time," Kiven quipped.

"_Shut...up!_"

"As I was saying," Grenn continued, "you have not been formally charged, but you will be placed under house arrest pending the results of the investigation. In the meantime, your ship, your droids, and any weapons you are carrying will have to given over for safekeeping."

T3 emitted a doleful whine. "Don't worry, T3," Kiven reassured him, "I'm sure this will all get sorted out eventually. After all, we don't have anything hide..._do we, Atton?_"

* * *

><p>The group was escorted into a prison cell, one which had a force field in place of a door. This struck Kiven as being monumentally stupid, since it meant that a power failure would result in a jailbreak.<p>

Atton continued to voice his displeasure, letting loose with about how he had been unjustly confined, how his rights were being trampled on, how he was going to get the whole Telos Security Force sacked, and so on. Kreia sat in silence while Kiven simply ignored him. As the minutes passed, he began to feel a gnawing sensation that his arrival here had not gone unnoticed by the numerous groups who were after him, and his suspicions were confirmed when a pair of men confidently strutted into the holding area. They were dressed in the uniforms of the TSF, but their clothes were ill-fitting and sloppily done-up.

"I'm Durak, and this is my brother Mudak. We're the best bounty hunters in the galaxy, and that's not us bragging, that's fact." He spoke with an utterly imbecilic drawl, clearly indicating that intelligence was not his strong suit.

His brother was no slouch when it came being free of the vagaries of intelligence, either. "You're that Jedi Exile, ain't you? The Exchange's got a big huge bounty on Jedi, don't'cha know. 'Course, it's only fer live Jedi, but I'd rather kill ya', 'cause I like killin'."

"So is it true?" asked the first bounty hunter. "Are you really the Jedi Exile, the one who fought against the Mandalorians, the one who blew up the Malachor system real good?"

Kiven looked him squarely in the eye. "No."

Durak spun around. "Blast! We came all the way from Nar Shaddaa and we got the wrong guy! Damn it, Mudak, I knew we shoulda' taken that left turn at Sleheyron."

"Dun' know what yer talkin' about, brother. He sure done look like that Jedi Exile to me."

"No, ya' dummy! Everyone knows that Jedi can't lie, so if he really was a Jedi, he woulda' had to say so when I asked him if he were one. But he didn't, so he ain't."

"Gee, brother, yer so smart..."

They were about to leave when the one calling himself Durak stopped and turned around. "Say, you don't know where we might be finding that Jedi, do you?"

"You might want to check Mustafar," Kiven said. "He was headed that way, last time I heard."

"Gee, thanks!"

After the two imbeciles left the holding area, Atton slapped his head. "Did that really just happen? I mean, I know bounty hunters are morons, but grife!"

About a half-hour, Lieutenant Grenn returned. "All right, we've arranged for you and your companions to stay in an apartment in Residential Module 082. There you will remain under house arrest for the duration of our investigation."

Atton stood up and stretched his arms. "I guess it beats a force cage, at least."

"Listen, you," Grenn hissed. "If it were up to me, your sorry carcass would be floating out of the nearest airlock! To perform such depraved acts is one thing, but to record them..." He then glanced over at Kiven. "If you're staying with that man, do not let him out of your sight. Don't trust him any further than you can throw him, and judging by the look of you, that's probably not very far."

In a truly rare occurrence, Kreia spoke directly to Atton. "If your sordid reputation is going to place us under unwanted scrutiny, then perhaps it would have been best had we left you on Peragus."

"Look, I wasn't in any porn holovid, I swear! This is all just some big misunderstanding!"

"Lie to yourself if you must, fool, but do not presume to lie to me."

* * *

><p>It was always the same, night after night: the dream of the flood.<p>

Brianna would find herself standing on wet sand, where the land met the sea. Suddenly, a gigantic wave would crash down upon the shore, sweeping her away. The raging waters were unstoppable, destroying everything in their path, and it was all she could do to keep her head above the surging tide. As a whole, the flood was relentless and unstoppable, and there was nothing anyone could do to divert its course. Then she would wake up and ask herself what was the meaning of it all, and while she never found the answer to that question, she was sure that whatever these dreams meant, they probably meant something bad.

Half-awake, she made her way to Atris' study. Her mistress had summoned her and her alone, which was Brianna's first clue that something was amiss. Still, even this minor alteration in her daily ritual was a welcome diversion from the excruciating boredom that was the entirety of her existence. The defeat of Darth Irenaceus had been the last time she'd heard anything of the world beyond the Telos Academy, and since then her life had been utterly consumed by routine. Wake, train, eat, sleep. That was all that Brianna's life consisted of. Nothing to see except the same dull, grey walls, and no one to talk to her except her sisters who despised her. Atris barely spoke with them any more, spending the majority of her waking hours locked inside her meditation chamber.

She entered into her mistress' study, feeling slightly apprehensive. Atris' expression gave absolutely no clues as to her emotional state, which only heightened Brianna's anxiety. Her mistress had a mercurial temperament, and all it took was the mention of the wrong topic or the wrong person to make her angry.

Atris got straight the heart of the matter. "I have just learned that the Exile has been detained on Citadel Station in regards to the destruction of the Peragus Mining Facility."

Brianna's heart sank. The Exile was both the wrong person _and_ the wrong topic. For years Atris had been convinced that the Exile was Darth Revan, Irenaceus' Sith master, and it was only after the war ended that she had been forced to admit (with barely-concealed humiliation) that she had been wrong.

"What is to be done, mistress?"

"I had thought him sincere in his desire to remain apart from the galactic community, and yet now he has returned. I want to know why, and what his role was in the mining station's destruction. I doubt very much that the Telosian Security Force investigation will reach the correct conclusion."

She wondered why Atris hadn't summoned her sisters to this discussion. Not that Brianna was complaining, of course. That her mistress deemed this information worthy of her ears alone filled her with pride.

Atris stood up. "But there is something far greater at stake – the very future of the Jedi Order itself. Make no mistake, the Order is facing the greatest trial in all of its thousands of years of existence. The events of these coming months will decide whether our paths leads to rebirth or ruin, evolution or extinction."

Brianna stiffened her posture. "What do you require of me, mistress?"

"I will not lie to you – the Jedi Order as we have known it is lost. But there are some Jedi who live still...six, to be precise – six Jedi Masters who have gone into hiding throughout the galaxy. I want them found and brought together."

She opened her mouth to speak, but the words came slowly. "But, mistress...you have often said that the Jedi who remain have strayed from the proper teachings."

"That is true, and when these Jedi Masters are found it may well turn out that they are not worthy of being called Jedi at all. But they still possess great knowledge of the Force, knowledge that will be vital if a new generation of Jedi are to be trained within these halls. As Jedi Historian, I would be remiss in my duty if I did not undertake every effort to preserve our collected wisdom, even if the source of that wisdom is...dubious."

"And how does this concern the Exile, mistress?"

"I know of where these six Jedi are located, but finding them will prove difficult and dangerous. I cannot risk myself in this endeavour, nor can I in good conscience send and your sisters to undertake this task. But the Exile, for all his many faults, would be the ideal individual to seek out the Jedi Masters and bring them together."

Atris did not say as much, but Brianna understood perfectly her reasoning: it was far better to risk the life of someone she despised than to risk the life of herself or her subordinates. That seemed rather inconsistent the notions of self-sacrifice that all Jedi were supposed to be instilled with, Brianna thought, but as her sisters so often pointed out, it was Atris who did the thinking around here, not her.

"So the Exile is to be summoned here, then?" she asked innocently.

"No, that will not work. Given the enmity between us, he will simply refuse anything I ask of him. Kiven must be _made_ to come here, and I believe an opportunity to do so has just presented itself. His ship is currently impounded on Citadel Station in dock module 126. I want to you to go there and bring that ship back to this academy. If he is sufficiently resourceful to find these six Jedi Masters, then he will be able to trace it to our location. Consider it a test of his abilities."

Brianna felt a pang of dread, but at the same time a rush of pride. This was an extremely important task, and one that had fallen to _her,_ not her sisters. "But what if, once he is brought here, the Exile refuses to do what you ask?"

Atris sighed. "I confess that is the most probable outcome. In all likelihood our 'meeting' will consist of little more than a trading of insults. But if he still possesses any shred of a conscience, then I believe he can be..._persuaded..._to do what I wish. And if not, then this will at least allow me to assess what sort of threat he poses to the galaxy."

"I understand."

"Good. Now, there is no time to waste – you must find the Exile's ship before he is released from custody. Take the _Sacred Heart _to Citadel Station; I will see that it is retrieved once you have returned."

"I will not fail you, mistress."

* * *

><p>Shortly after arriving on Citadel Station, Brianna discovered that she had a rather intense dislike of crowds. She had barely walked out of the hangar bay when she was swarmed with people of all races and types, and that instantly put her into a defensive mindset. Though there was no reason to believe so, Brianna felt as though she were about to be attacked at any moment and sought to get away from the throngs of people. Yet the mass of individuals moving around her was inescapable, and she was acutely aware that she looked rather conspicuous in her bright white attire.<p>

She pushed the noise and din out of her mind and focussed on her task: getting to docking module 126 and absconding with the Exile's ship. Brianna could not shake the feeling that there was something very questionable about this whole business, but Atris had impressed upon her that these were desperate times for the Jedi, and desperate times called for desperate measures.

She soon reached an area that looked to be a shopping centre of sorts, with stores and stalls lining the perimeter of a large concourse. The crowd was even thicker here, which only heightened her anxiety.

Then, someone called out to her in the Echani language.

Brianna stopped and looked around for the source of the voice. It was one the shopkeepers, a long-haired Echani man who looked to be selling weapons and ammunition. A sign above the storefront read "_Vibrosaw Ville's._"

She knew that she had little time to spare, but she could not resist the chance to speak with one of her own kind. The probability that Brianna would ever have this opportunity again was exceedingly small.

"Yes, what do you want?" she said, her words coming out ruder than she anticipated. It had been so long since she'd had a casual conservation that whatever meagre social skills she possessed had shrivelled up and died long ago.

"Haven't seen you here before, and I know almost everyone on this station. The name's Vibrosaw Ville."

Brianna frowned. "Why are you called that? You do not appear to be selling logging equipment."

He laughed. "You probably don't want to know. So what brings you to Citadel Station, if I may ask?"

"I am looking for a ship," she said flatly, without even thinking about how it might be prudent to conceal her reason for being here. Not that she would be able lie convincingly, anyway.

Thankfully, Ville misconstrued the meaning of her words. "Then you're in the wrong place, friend. No one sells ships on Citadel Station."

She began stepping back. "I'm sorry, I cannot stay to talk." Brianna then walked away without even waiting to hear Ville's words, fearing that the longer their conversation went on the greater the likelihood was that he would ask her what her name was. In that case, she would either be forced to lie or tell the truth – that her shame was too great to even utter her name. Neither option was palatable to her.

It did not take her long to locate the hangar where the Exile's ship was, the only problem lay in getting on-board without anyone seeing her.

From outside the hangar entrance, Brianna could see that the ship was of a very similar design to the _Sacred Heart,_ with brightly-polished hull plating and a sleek, streamlined design. The boarding ramp was only twenty metres away by her estimation, but there were two bored-looking TSF officers patrolling the hangar, apparently the only people guarding the place. When their backs were turned Brianna silently sprinted forward and took cover behind a pair of crates.

After ascertaining that her intrusion into the hangar had gone unseen, she waited until the two men were once more out of sight. The instant they disappeared behind a stack of cargo cylinders she rushed out of her hiding place and towards the _Fall From Grace's_ boarding ramp, hoping the sound of her footsteps on the hard durasteel floor would go unheard.

Brianna was almost in the clear when she heard a droid making a great deal of noise of all a sudden. She stopped and lowered her hood, looking around for the source of the sound, and saw to her dismay that a T3 unit near the wall had caught sight of her and now was trying to alert the two TSF officers to her presence.

"Go shut that thing up!" she heard of the officers say.

One of the men walked over to the T3 unit and gave it a good kick. "Quiet, you!"

She hastily made her way up the boarding ramp and onto the _Fall From Grace._ Now all that remained was flying this ship out of here and back to the Telos Academy.

* * *

><p>To call their quarters an "apartment" was stretching the definition of the term to its limit, and it was hardly big enough for one person, let alone three. A pair of guards stood outside the door for the purposes of screening any potential visitors and to ensure that none of them tried to leave.<p>

Atton did not find this reassuring, predictably. "I don't like this. We need to find a way off this station and fast. It's only a matter of time before another bounty hunter comes looking for you, and they probably won't be as dumb as the last two."

"And go where?" Kiven asked. "And I'm not even sure what I'm doing _here!_"

"If you're looking to disappear, we could always hit Nar Shaddaa. It's where-"

His reply was swift and final. "_No!_ Not now, not later, not _ever! _You understand me? The forests of Gamorr would be preferable to setting foot on that sinkhole of a world. Nar Shaddaa is nothing but a festering pustule on the arse end of the galaxy!"

Atton was taken aback by his caustic tone. "Hey, say what you will about Nar Shaddaa, but at least it's a place where a man is free to live his own life. No government, no politicians, no masters. What could be better than that?"

Kiven stood there speechless. "Are you _really_ that stupid? Have you ever _been_ to Nar Shaddaa?"

"Of course I've been there! I've probably spent more time there than on every other planet combined."

"But you haven't _lived_ there."

"So? You don't have to have to lived in a place to know what it's about."

Kiven should have realised that there was no point in arguing with him, yet he could not help himself. "But what exactly _is_ Nar Shaddaa about, Atton? Is it, as they say, the 'Smuggler's Moon'? That's hardly a fitting description considering that the vast majority of people who live there aren't engaged in that particular profession. And the word 'smuggler' has a sort of glamour attached to it, a kind of rebelliousness and 'rugged individualism' that appeals to some types...yet I would never dare to suggest that there is _anything_ glamorous or appealing about the way people live there. So what is it, then? A world of criminals? Well, in order to be a criminal there first has to be a law for you to break, and the only law on Nar Shaddaa is the law of the jungle. Which, incidentally, means that the 'criminals' are probably the only decent people you'll find there. So do you know what Nar Shaddaa is _truly_ about, Atton? Do you know what it _really_ is?"

"No, but I get the feeling you're going to tell me."

"It is a world of hustlers, a people relentlessly on the make and whose only goal in life is 'getting mine'. They don't give a damn about anyone but themselves, and woe betide anyone who does. Showing concern for the commonweal is a sign of weakness, and if there's one thing they don't tolerate on Nar Shaddaa, it's weakness. Every single person living there, no matter how lowly and how wretched, believes that if they simply work hard enough, if they just struggle valiantly enough, then they too will have millions of credits to their name and live in some lavishly-appointed penthouse where scantily-clad Twi'lek servants wait upon their every need. The fact that countless billions never make it out of the gutter despite their struggles doesn't matter to them. No, they can always point to the few who rose to the top as proof that everything is working the way it should be. That there might be something perverse about a society that allow such extreme disparities in wealth never crosses their minds. But you've never experienced any of this, have you, Atton? No, all you know of Nar Shaddaa are the clubs, the cantinas, the Red Light Sector...Force knows I never want to learn what sort of perversities you indulged in there. You've never been down to the slums on the lower levels where I spent the first nine years of my life. You've never tasted true desperation and despair. So with all due respect, Atton...you know nothing about Nar Shaddaa at all."

Atton turned away in capitulation. "All right, all right, so we _won't_ go to Nar Shaddaa. Geez..."

"You said it was a place one could go be 'free', but there's only kind of freedom there, Atton: the freedom to grow up blighted."

Kreia listened to all this with detachment, and Kiven knew she was wondering why he bothered trying to teach Atton anything. She was probably right, he thought. Atton was one of those "rugged individualists," which was just another way of saying that his first and only concern was "looking out for number one." He was the kind of person who thrived on the Smuggler's Moon, or who at least believed he could.

A loud chiming came from the apartment's computer terminal, interrupting him from his thoughts. The sound indicated that someone wanted to speak with him.

It was one of the TSF officers. "_Excuse me, sir, you have a caller – Lena Welkinstrider, representing the __Interplanetary Union of Astronomers. __Shall I patch her through?_"

Kiven twitched. As they were the people who rescued him from Hoth he had a great many questions for them, though he was very suspicious of their true intentions. "Yes, please do so."

The image on the screen disappeared and was replaced by a dark-haired, rather attractive young woman. She wore a tight-fitting uniform of a deep purple hue, bearing what Kiven assumed was the IUA's logo on the left breast. It was quite a strange symbol for an organisation of astronomers, consisting of two concentric circles, with some strange lettering he did not recognise in between them. In the centre were three circles surrounded by another ring of glyphs, though the image on the monitor was too small for Kiven to make them out. The whole symbol was blood-red in colour, giving it a rather sinister appearance.

"_Ah, Kiven!_" she said, her voice positively effusive. "_I'm so glad to see that you're unharmed after all that nastiness at Peragus. I'm Lena Welkinstrider, Knight Researcher for the __Interplanetary Union of Astronomers._"

Now maybe he could get some answers. "What does the IUA want with me?"

"_The IUA has long been an admirer of your actions during the Mandalorian Wars. In particular, the destruction of the Malachor __system__, while immeasurably destructive, provided us with a wealth of scientific knowledge. Thousands of postgraduate students throughout the galaxy have obtained their doctoral degrees by publishing theses on the __Malachor supernova. It was our hope that you would take up a position within our organisation following your exile from the Jedi Order._"

Normally, any mention of the tragedy at Malachor would have elicited a strong response from him, but this revelation was so bizarre that Kiven was more confused than anything else. "And what is your business on Citadel Station?"

"_The IU__A is a major backer of the Telosian Restoration Project, and after the destruction of the Peragus Mining Facility, they're going to need all the help they can get. Unfortunately, we've been having some trouble with Czerka Corporation as of late._"

While Kiven was hardly willing to trust the IUA, given that he knew next to nothing about them, he was well aware of the manifold atrocities routinely committed by Czerka. Slavery, war profiteering, illegal arms sales...these were just some of the many reasons why they routinely occupied the number one position in the list of the greatest corporate criminals in the galaxy.

"What sort of 'trouble'?"

"_As Citadel Station grew, the TSF found itself unable to field the manpower necessary to police the entire station, so the Republic awarded Czerka security and supply contracts. Unfortunately, Czerka just can't keep their greedy hands to themselves, and they've been pushing hard to wrest control of the restoration project away from the Ithorians through backroom deals and __questionable__ legal manoeuvring. I shouldn't have to tell you the Czerka doesn't care one bit about restoring Telos' natural environment, so likely this is all part of their plan to transform the planet into some trashy, commercialised feedlot. We at the IUA don't want to see that happen._"

"I don't doubt it, but what does this have to do with me?"

"_I would rather we not discuss __that__ over the comlink. You can find __our compound __here in residential block 082._"

"I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to leave this apartment at the moment."

"_Ah yes, I suppose you're stuck there until the TSF finishes their little investigation. Come visit our compound as soon as you're able...I look forward to meeting you in person._"

The image of the monitor disappeared. "Please don't tell me you're actually thinking about helping those people," Atton whined. "I'm telling you, the IUA is bad news."

"Why? What sort of things have they gotten up to?"

"That's the problem – _no one_ knows what they're up to. I mean, if you want to find out about all the horrible things the Exchange or Czerka do, it doesn't exactly take a whole lot of effort, you know what I'm saying? But the IUA, they're like ghosts."

"So what you're saying is, there's no actual evidence that they've done anything immoral?"

"Um...well...uh...no, but...but they've _got_ to be up to no good! I just know it!"

Kreia finally interjected. "You would do well to be cautious of this group, Kiven. They are sure to be pursuing their own agenda, and they will seek to use you for their own ends."

_And that doesn't describe you at all, does it?_Kiven walked over to one of the beds and began the painful ordeal of sitting himself down. _Grife, how I hate this!_ he thought. He could have sworn that his bad back hurt more now than it ever had, and it was enough to make him long for another shot of morphine. The true irony of his situation was that Kiven could use the Force to heal others, but not himself. It was just yet another one of the idiosyncrasies of his connection to the Force, and one more reason why he believed himself to be little more than its personal plaything. "You'll be able to help everybody," it seemed to be saying. "Everybody, that is, except yourself."

Atton lay down on one of the beds and was fast asleep within minutes, while Kreia resumed her meditation. Kiven had not meditated on the Force in ten years, and he had no intention of doing so again. Other Jedi found peace in the practice, but for him it was terrifying. The instant he allowed himself to be immersed in the currents of the Force was like stepping into a raging torrent, and he was terrified that he would end up being swept away.

He sat there for a while, just staring out of the tiny apartment window. Not that there was much to see beyond the endlessly-repeating landscape of Citadel Station. His thoughts went back to what Kreia had told him earlier - "_This is a battle unlike anything you have experienced before._" After the Mandalorian Wars, the thought of taking up arms in any capacity was too detestable to contemplate. If Ruslan were still here, he'd have strong words about the subject, no doubt about it.

When Kiven had asked him why he'd joined the military, Ruslan had given an answer that was typical of a great many soldiers: he'd signed up because he was poor. "_When I was seventeen, two recruiters came to our house, making all kinds of promises about money for education and a big fat __enlistment__ bonus. They skipped right __past__ the homes of the rich kids and came straight to mine. They sure knew what they were doing, those recruiters. Five years later, __when__ I had a wife and two kids and not enough __credits to __look after__ them, I remembered their words._"

But it was what Ruslan had said next that had really stuck with him. "_Let me tell you something, kid. The army's not like a regular job; you can't just get up and quit if you don't like it. And war just dragged on and on...it's like setting fire to a field of dry grass. It starts where you want it to, but it won't _stop_ where you want it to._"

And by turning away from war, Ruslan had lost everything. After he had deserted the Republic Army, his wife left him, his family disowned him, and everyone he had ever known called him a coward and a traitor. All because he had chosen to do what he felt was right. Looking back now, Kiven admired him for his courage. It was easy to do the right thing when you knew you'd be honoured for it, but how many people could do the right thing when you would face only shame and disgrace?

He looked at Kreia, who was deep within her meditation, and for a second he allowed himself to become submerged in the Force. Expecting to be tossed and thrown about by those raging waters, Kiven did not expect to find himself in an oasis of tranquillity. For a while it was quite pleasant, until he started asking himself why this brief immersion in the Force felt so different from what he was accustomed to.

Then he realised the answer lay within this very room. As impossible as it sounded, Atton Rand was the reason the Force felt so muted here. Though he could not sense the Force in living things, what he sensed from Atton was not the Force, but instead its absence. He was like a black hole from which no light could escape, and the more Kiven reflected upon it the more terrifying it became. For there was a terrible emptiness within the smuggler, and he was not sure what to make of it.

This darkness seemed so at odds with Atton's joking, carefree manner. Or was it? In Kiven's experience, the people with the greatest sense of humour were those with most tragic pasts. Because a joke was never just a joke. It often masked a very serious and very often painful truth; the laughter was just there to ease the pain.

Since there was nothing he could do but wait until they were released from house arrest, he decided take a brief nap, completely unaware that his ship was en route to the lair of his most hated enemy.


	6. Decoherence

Chapter 6 – Decoherence

* * *

><p>As Brianna sat in the pilot's seat of the <em>Fall From Grace,<em> a strange sensation came over her. She felt confident for the first time in as long as she could remember. She was in control of this ship, and she decided where it would go. For a moment she thought about engaging the hyperdrive and flying off to a place of her choosing, but reality quickly burst that bubble. Not only would that mean breaking her oath to Atris, she had no idea where she would travel to. As if that weren't all, the only coordinates in the _Fall From Grace's_ astrogation system were for Telos.

Even during this one brief moment of freedom, the walls were never very far away. She quickly forced down any more such thoughts...thoughts that were desperately trying to burrow their way out of her subconscious in a fit of abject despondency.

Brianna set the ship's autopilot to direct it towards the polar region, ensuring that the vessel flew at a very leisurely speed. This was the first time in years that she been outside the Telos Academy, and she was going to make it last.

She left the cockpit and started looking about for anything that might indicate what sort of person the Exile was. The first door on her left led to some very spacious quarters, and she correctly deduced that this where he slept.

To her right was the refresher, and inside she found some sort of white fur coat lying in a heap on the floor. When Brianna reached down to pick it up, she saw to her disgust that it was stained with dried blood. Since it was on the inside of the garment, that meant the blood belonged to the Exile, if these were indeed his clothes.

Back in the bedroom, she found nothing else of note except a pair of strange, blue crystals and a worn, battered datapad. Brianna tried activating it, only to find that it was non-functional. After determining that the power cell was drained, she started looking about for a replacement.

While she searched, she pondered how the Exile would react when found out that his ship had been stolen. He would be angry, obviously, but what would he do if he managed to trace it back to the polar ice cap? Going on what Atris had said about him, Brianna half-expected the Exile to try to murder everyone in the Telos Academy.

Yet she could not quite bring herself to believe that. Her mistress spoke of the Exile with so much hatred and loathing that she often wondered how much of it was true. After all, she had been wrong about him being Darth Revan, so was it possible that she was wrong about him in other ways? Brianna had always worried about Atris' obsession with the man. Her father had once told her, "_When you hate someone, you bind yourself to that person, and make yourself a slave to their actions. As long as you hold a grudge, you will never be free._"

And her mistress definitely held a grudge against the Exile, that much was certain. Brianna hated to think how their meeting would turn out.

After several minutes of searching, she finally located a replacement power cell and inserted it into the datapad. She thumbed through the menus and found that the only thing stored on it was a lengthy series of journal entries. Feeling a touch guilty about reading through someone's private thoughts, she started with earliest:

_Day 1: Made planetfall on Hoth just before a plasma surge blew out every last one of this ship's power converters. If the mechanic of the year suddenly appeared next to me, __even he would not be able to get this thing flying again. Fortunately, the cave I located from orbit is only a short distance from here, and true to my readings it's situated right above a geothermal hotspot. It's so warm inside that I can even wear plain clothing.  
><em>

_ I immediately began dismantling the ship and carrying its vital components into the cave. As soon as I was finished I took a plasma torch and burned out the communications equipment. It was a difficult thing to do, but necessary. I do not think I could resist the temptation to contact the outside world, and doing so would surely lead others to this place. No, I came to this planet for a reason, and I shall never leave it._

Five years ago the Exile had given his "final message" to the galaxy in which he stated his intention to live out of the rest of his days on a "harsh world," and Hoth was nothing if not harsh. From what she knew of it, the climate at the equatorial regions was about the same as the climate at the polar region of Telos.

She looked at the date of the entry. It was two years before he had made his "final message," suggesting that his transmission had been delayed somehow, either intentionally or not.

Seven years. Seven years, alone on a frozen, desolate world with absolutely no hope of escape. It seemed too horrible to comprehend...or was it? After all, that was roughly the same length of time she had spent at the Telos Academy, and while she was not alone there, having the endure the presence of her sisters was scarcely any better. But the Exile had _chosen_ to live that life...why? As some form of penance, perhaps? That would contradict what Atris had told her, that the Exile felt no remorse for his actions. Had he gone there to hide from his enemies? But if that were the case, then there were far more suitable planets for that purpose than Hoth. She read the next entry:

_Day 2: First night went better than expected; I can safely say that I have slept in far worse places. __For the next few days I'm going to explore the area around the cave._

_Day 5: Most people would probably describe Hoth as being little more than a frozen wasteland, but there is a sort of desolate beauty that I have come to appreciate in the short time I have been here. It is in the way the sun glints off the snow, the streaks of shooting stars in the night sky, and the shimmering surfaces of vast ice fields. All around me there is a striking sense of pristine cleanness and untouched natural wonder. It is a striking contrast to the past three years of traipsing about the Outer Rim, going from one dingy cantina to the next._

_ Day 7: Today I discovered yet another natural wonder of this planet: the ice forests. There are numerous geysers near my position that periodically shoot columns of steam into the air. The steam quickly freezes around the geyser's mouth, and over time it builds up into spectacular columns of ice that dot the landscape like trees. The mineral deposits inside the volcanic springs cause these "trees" to exhibit a wide variety of hues...yellows, greens, reds, and violets._

Skipping ahead, the entries soon began detailing the numerous difficulties he was facing living on such an inhospitable planet:

_Day 27: Since the food rations I brought with me will not last forever, I will obviously need to find a new source of nourishment. There are some lichens deeper within the cave which may prove edible, if not exactly good-tasting. This planet is home to a species of reptomammals called tauntauns; tomorrow I shall set out to hunt down one of these creatures._

_ Day 28: I managed to shoot and kill a tauntaun and bring its carcass back to the cave. Unfortunately, their meat proved to be totally inedible. It's stringy and has a horrid, sulphurous taste that made me retch after just one bite. In the end I had no choice but to leave its body outside. What a waste. __I now wish I had never shot the tauntaun._

_ Day 29: Leaving the tauntaun carcass outside was a very stupid thing to do. It attracted the attention of a wampa, a very large and very carnivorous creature native to this world. In the driving snow it was nearly upon me before I saw it. It took about seven or eight shots to bring it down._

_I spent the next few hours skinning the beast, then sewing its hide together into a makeshift fur coat. It was a gruesome task, but it should provide me with garment that is much warmer than one I came here in. I just hope there are no more wampas living in the area, as they will doubtlessly take umbrage at how I am wearing one of their hides._

That explained the dirty fur coat lying in the refresher, Brianna thought. She read on.

_Day 31: Going to try out this recipe I came up with the other day:_

_ Cornflour_

_ Glow fungus (not sure what else to call them)_

_ Cave lichen_

_ One small measure of ground ice plant root_

_ Bake under medium heat for fifteen minutes._

_ Note to self: Never eat this ever again. Extremely poisonous. Remember the unhappy day spent curled up on the ground._

_ Day 34: Made a wonderful discovery today! Somnii mushrooms, growing deep within the cave system. I know that somnii mushroom are not native to Hoth, so someone must have brought them here. The initial survey team, perhaps? Somehow I doubt it. Is it possible that this planet was subject to long-term habitation before my arrival?_

_ I am boiling these mushrooms up right now. They sure smell good, I must say._

_ Feel sleepy all of a sudden. Can't...keep-_

_ Day 35: It would seem that boiling somnii mushrooms produces a vapour that acts as a highly-potent sedative. What will I do now? It is far too cold to outside to cook them there, and there is not enough space within this cave to get away from the vapours._

_ The only solution I can see is somehow building up a tolerance to these vapours over time so that I can remain unaffected. I do not know how long this will take, or if such a thing is even possible, but these somnii mushrooms are easily the most nourishing food source available, and do not think I can live without them..._

Brianna set the datapad aside for a moment. In every Echani's life, there was nothing more important than to belong, whether it was to a family, or a village, or a company of warriors. That was why the sentence of exile was considered such a dreadful punishment, as it meant an individual Echani no longer belonged to anything at all. All of his ties would severed clean, leaving him utterly alone. Most people would rather die than suffer such a fate, yet here was the Exile, willing embracing it.

She picked up the datapad continued reading, skipping ahead several months at time. The entries provided a disturbing look into the gradual erosion of the Exile's sanity:

_Day 138: The isolation is beginning to have strange effects on me...just the other night I spent two hours having a very engaging conversation with a stalactite. Or was that a stalagmite? Which are the kind that hang from the ceiling? Doesn't matter._

_Day 195: I am the only sentient being on this __world__. __How many other people can make that claim? Jedi are not supposed to have any personal possessions, but I am no longer a Jedi. Now I count amongst my possessions my rifle, my cooker, this datapad, and THIS PLANET._

_ Day 271: Dreamt I heard someone calling my name. I went up the cave entrance to find myself in a raging blizzard, and soon I could not see anything around me. __Then, all of a sudden, I saw Atris standing in the snow. I tried to run and get away from her, but it was as though my legs were frozen and I could not move. Awoke in a sweat, terrified out of __my __mind._

_ Just a dream. Just a terrible dream. Atris __is__ far away now. She won't find me here. I know she's out there looking for me. She wanted me dead after Malachor__. But she won't find me. __I'm safe from her here. __Won't find me. __Won't find me. WON'T FIND ME._

Brianna paused. The Exile sounded paranoid about her mistress, but she really _had_ been looking for him. Not wanting to think on how poorly this reflected on Atris, she kept reading.

_Day 492: Just discovered another wampa living in a cave nearby. Strangely, he did not attack me on sight. We sort of walked away from each other and I am greatly curious as to what this might portend..._

_ Day 574: After several more encounters with the neighbouring wampa, I think the two of us have come to a sort of unspoken __understanding__ – he leaves me alone, and I will leave him alone. __That is a sensible agreement, is it not? __Perhaps he will invite me over for tea one day. It will be so nice to have someone to talk to._

_ Day 719: Ruslan spoke to me tonight. I know he's been dead for years, but he speaks to __me __nonetheless. It's good to hear his voice._

_Day 918: I see now what is happening to me. I exist now in a quantum state. Since I am unobserved I am occupying all possible states simultaneously. The gizka in the box is both alive and dead. Should anyone find me here the wavefunction will collapse. __This cannot be allowed to happen. I am cosmic being, second generation, conceived in the dark womb of Winter. Loneliness was my mother and Solitude her midwife. __Here, I am everywhere. Everywhere my voice is heard. __I am King of Kings and God of Gods._

_ Day 1031: Every night I see them. All the Jedi is led into death's halls. Only I walked out again. Why? I wonder what it was I said that made Death reject me. Every night I see their faces. They are always silent. __I beg them to pass judgement on me but they say nothing. __Why did I leave them all?__ Maybe this is all a dream. Maybe I really did die at Malachor and I just haven't realised it yet._

_ Day 1185: When I die, my body will be preserved for all eternity. And four thousand years later, when someone finds my frozen corpse, what will they say? Will they ask, "Who was this wretched soul? For what purpose did he come here?" And they must know the reason: I am here because I killed the Sun and now must have only Darkness and Cold._

Brianna tried to force herself to stop reading at that point, but she couldn't help herself. The Exile's journal were fascinating in a horrible sort of way, and as she read a terrible fear began to well up within her...the fear that this too might be her fate if she remained in the Telos Academy for much longer. Maybe the recurring nightmares were just the first stage of madness. Maybe her mistress would find her one day sitting alone in her dormitory, blubbering utter nonsense to herself.

As the entries continued, the Exile stopped marking which day they had been made, likely the result of him losing his grasp on the passage of time. His words no longer dealt with reality, but some inner world that he had constructed for himself.

- _No point in dwelling on the future. I know it won't be happening. I have reached the inescapable conclusion that I have gone completely and utterly insane. Bonkers. Mad. Deranged. Psychotic. Loony. LOST IT. How did this come about, you ask? Well, you must know that madness never just happens. Crazy is made, not born. No, you must have a PREDICAMENT. A predicament that forces you to transcend the mundane into the realm of pure thought and form. I hunt and I gather but my mind lives upon another plane of existence, where images become reality and pure crystalline notions achieve transfiguration and apotheosis. Every living creature on this planet from the greatest of beasts to the tiniest of bacteria is connected to me. Everything I see, everything I hear, touch, taste, and smell, it all belongs to me. I am Hoth and this planet is me._

_ - Alone again. Even the wampa who lives next door stopped speaking to me. I only wanted to be friends. Was that so wrong? No, no, no! Don't deserves friends, companionship, love! No warm bed and loving wife and smiling children! Just cold, lightless hell. I am the only one here. That is how it is always was and how it always must be._

_ - Only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only one here, only..._

_ - I wish they could see as I see it. It is so beautiful, so perfect. The edge of the universe is no further than the reach of my hand. I am energy, I am impulse. I am. I am. I AM. Nothing happens that I do not will. I am beyond gods. Atris and Kavar and Lonna and the others could never IMAGINE what I see before me now. One day, when their bones are dust, only I will remain. I am the crucible in which all impurities shall be burnt and purged away. I forge the tools by which the universe will be unmade. I am clad in the very fabric of Space and Time._

_ - Nuclear fission to fusion. See it now. One man against 235. Two and three become four and one. Chaotic distribution of fission products. Strontium dawn. Caesium dreams. Soon comes the poison rain. Why has this intruded upon my vision? Everything was going so well. Now I am by myself again in solitary ruin. I can no longer see beyond the immediate. Everything has become small. I am alone. Scared._

_ - Sense quantum oscillations. Uncertainty principle. Action a distance. Has decoherence occurred? Something beyond has changed. I do not like this. I have looked too far and something has looked back at me. I am powerless, but in my state the difference between absolute power and utter powerlessness is undetectable. I see it so clearly now...freedom is powerlessness. Why do so many strive for power when the lives of kings and emperors are filled with loneliness and despair? No man can change the course of things. A dream of the flood...not to strive against it but to allow oneself to be carried away to wherever the flood wills...that is the key. To do by not doing. Never again shall I let the Mother of Lies speak to me so.  
><em>

Then, quite suddenly, the Exile was thrust back into reality:

- _I am starting to run out of things to eat. The somnii mushrooms no longer grow in abundance and I cannot subsist on the lichen alone. I look at the chrono on the datapad I see that seven years have passed since I first came to this world. This cannot be right. Surely the datapad has malfunctioned? There is no way I could have survived that long. I cannot even remember what I have done during that time...it is like I have just awoken from a dream. Some people never go crazy...what dull lives they must lead._

_ - Getting weaker from lack of food. I don't think I have the strength to go looking for another source, which means it's the end for me. Starvation doesn't sound like a terribly pleasant way to go, but I think I forfeited the right to a quick death. I never wanted to things to end this way. If I could just go back and change...no. There is no point in spending my last few weeks indulging in pathetic and tedious self-pity. I am just amazed that I have endured this long._

Finally, she reached the very last journal entry:

_- Wampa attacked me...right in my cave. Shot him dead but not before took a good swipe at me. So much blood...looks like it won't be death by starvation after all. Don't know why he did it...thought we were friends. I don't want to die alone..._

_ I can hear a ship outsi-_

Brianna switched off the datapad, feeling very ashamed of herself for having read things the Exile had never intended anyone to read. Still, Atris would be greatly interested in its contents, and her first thought was to take the datapad straight to her. She had to know that there was a good chance the Exile had gone insane and posed a definite threat to the galaxy.

Yet something stopped her.

Perhaps she felt a tinge of sympathy for the man, or perhaps she simply detested the idea of embarrassing him by revealing his innermost thoughts to her mistress. Whatever the reason, she stashed the datapad in one of the drawers and returned to the cockpit. The ship would be nearing the north pole soon.

* * *

><p>"Excellent work. I knew I made the right choice in selecting you for this task. Did you find information on-board regarding the Exile?"<p>

Brianna should have felt pride that Atris praised her so, but all she felt was a growing sense of unease. There was something very wrong about this, yet she could not put her finger on it.

"Only that he has spent the past seven years on Hoth, mistress." She hoped Atris would not ask her how she had obtained this knowledge.

Atris looked genuinely surprised. "Hoth? That is...unexpected, though I suppose it explains why I could no longer sense him, given that it is on the opposite side of the galaxy. Did you learn why he chosen to return?"

"It was not his choice, mistress. It seems he was wounded by some creature, then rescued by someone...I do not know who it was."

"I see." Her tone made Brianna wonder if Atris would have been happier had she learned that the Exile had returned for the explicit purpose of taking revenge upon her. "Now all that remains is to see whether or not he can find his way here. Yet there is still one more thing I must ask of you."

She didn't like the sound of that one bit. "What is it, mistress?"

"Before I say anything, I must have your word that you will not mention any of this to others. This must be kept in the strictest confidence, do you understand?"

"Perfectly."

"Very well. If the Exile is able to find his way here, and if agrees to search for the Jedi Master as I ask...then I want you to accompany him."

Brianna felt like her heart had suddenly been clenched with an icy fist. "Mistress, I..."

"I understand that this is a great risk, and I would not ask this of you if I did not believe you capable of carrying out my wishes."

A million questions ran through her mind. "But...he will surely refuse and-"

"That is why you will stow aboard his ship, then make your presence known when you feel it is best. I want you to watch his every move and ensure that he does not waver from his task. During the mission I expect you make regular reports detailing his progress, taking note of his activities and those who influence him."

She knew that it was futile to argue with Atris once she had set her mind to something. "I will do as you ask, mistress."

Brianna returned to her dormitory, feeling completely numb. Though she was in no position to question Atris, this seemed to her to be an exceedingly bad idea. What if, when she revealed herself to the Exile, his first action would be to throw her out of the airlock? Maybe she _should_ have given her the datapad so she could see just how mad the Exile had gone.

_You have no right to complain,_ she told herself. _You have been yearning for years to leave this place, and now you finally have the opportunity to do so._

But not like this. _Not like this._

She reassured herself that the Exile might not find his way here, and even if he did, he was almost certain to refuse anything her mistress asked of him. Yes, that was the most likely outcome. Brianna kept repeating that to herself until she almost believed it.

* * *

><p>The following day Lieutenant Grenn returned to their apartment with the first piece of good news they'd had since arriving at Citadel Station. Their investigation into the destruction of the Peragus Mining Facility had concluded that neither Kiven nor his companions were responsible, and they were free to go about their business as they pleased. Before he left, he informed that they could get the <em>Fall From Grace<em> out of impound at the TSF station in the Entertainment Module.

"Finally," said Atton. "Now let's go get our ship and get the hell off this scrapheap."

Outside of the apartment was a commons area of sorts, though it was very drab and sparse. The walls and floors were dull grey durasteel with only a small number of windows scattered about. Somewhere along the line the Ithorians had made an effort to liven up this dreary place by planting a row of exotic flora in the middle of the commons. It did not really help much.

Atton reached much the same conclusion as Kiven did. "I think whoever built this place wanted to make a statement," he said. "That statement was, 'I give up'."

"I'm sure the Entertainment Module will be more to your liking," said Kiven, only partly paying attention to what Atton was saying.

"'Entertainment'? I'll believe _that_ when I see it. Still, it's got to be better than place."

That might have been true for him, but it was quite the opposite for Kiven.

No sooner had they reached the Entertainment District then they were swarmed by throngs of people. Fear seized Kiven's heart, and that instant his mind was emptied of all thoughts except one: _escape._ His heart started pounded, sending a stabbing pain through his chest, and his breathing became frantic and shallow. The TSF had brought them this way when they had taken them to the their apartment, but there hadn't been anywhere near as many people as there were now.

Everything around began to spin. All he could think of was a knife being driven into his back, carried by an assassin lurking amongst the faceless masses. He looked around frantically for an exit, but the crowd had already swallowed him. The world around him felt like a dreamland.

He slammed his back up against the wall. They couldn't get him from behind now. But somewhere out in that crowd there was a blade waiting for him, he was sure of it. Instinctively, Kiven reached for his lightsaber, only to find that it wasn't there. It hadn't been there in ten years, yet grasping for it was an ingrained reflex.

_I should not have come here. I do not belong in this place._

Atton grabbed him by the shoulder, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. "Hey, what's gotten into you?"

His voice jolted Kiven back to reality. "I...nothing...it's just that I...I'm not good with crowds," he mumbled. He closed his eyes and took a series of long, deep breaths, bringing back some measure of calm to his nerves.

After the pain in chest subsided, Kiven started moving again, still keeping close to the wall lest he become surrounded again. He hoped that no one in the crowd recognised him, though he doubted he would be that fortunate. There was just something about his appearance that stuck in peoples' memory.

Reaching the TSF station was like finding an oasis in the desert. The noise out of the crowd was diminished to a dull roar, and at last there was some breathing space.

A worn-looking protocol droid was responsible for handling any inquiries. "Welcome to Entertainment Module 081's TSF station," it said in the posh, measured voice typical of such droids. "How may I be of assistance?"

"Lieutenant Grenn told me this where I could get the _Fall From Grace_ and the rest of my things out of impound," said Kiven.

"Please wait while I access the records." There was an uncomfortable pause before the droid spoke again, and Kiven began to suspect that something was wrong. "I am sorry sir, but the _Fall From Grace_ is gone. TSF believes that it was stolen and is currently investigating."

In another time, Kiven would have responded to these bit of bad news with outrage, but now he found himself almost completely apathetic. Maybe it was just a result of growing up on Nar Shaddaa, where anything he possessed would invariably be stolen from him by those who were stronger.

Atton's response was similarly resigned. "I'm not even going to pretend to be surprised by this. You know why? Because _nothing good happens to me ever!_"

"Any idea who was responsible?" Kiven asked.

"I'm afraid we have no leads at this ti-"

Just then a nearby door opened and T3 came rolling into the room, emitting a cacophony of beeps and shrieks. He had heard his master's voice and was determined to let the truth be known.

Kiven was just relieved that the droid had not been stolen along with the ship. "Slow down, T3! Tell me what happened."

T3 answer was so frantic that he couldn't understand anything of what he was saying. Fortunately, the TSF protocol droid was able to translate for him.

"I'm afraid your utility droid is not making much sense, sir. He claims that a 'large-breasted albino' was responsible for the theft of the ship, and is demanding that all TSF personnel on duty in the hangar be summarily dismissed. He then uttered a string of phrases that would be impolite for me to translate."

Atton sneered. "'Large-breasted albino'? That's it, Kiven, your droid's frakked in the head! How long has it been since you had its memory wiped, anyway?"

T3 turned to face him and let out a series of angry-sounding noises, informing Atton in droid-speak exactly what he could go do with himself.

"Well, that's it, then," Kiven said with a sigh. "Whoever stole the _Fall From Grace_ is probably halfway across the galaxy by now."

"I do not believe that is likely," said the protocol droid. "It seems the _Fall From Grace_ was transferred to the planet's surface, though it has not been detected at any of the government-sanctioned landing sites."

"Have there been many vehicles stolen from Citadel Station lately?"

"There has not been a reported theft from any TSF-operated hangar in the past three months."

His instincts were telling him that the chances of the TSF ever finding the culprit were asymptotically close to zero. "All right, can we at least have our things returned to us?"

"Of course, sir. You will find them in the rightmost storage locker in the room behind you."

The only thing that the TSF agents had confiscated was his rifle, although they had left the ammunition on the _Fall From Grace._ As much as Kiven detested violence, he realised that it would probably be inevitable at some point. That meant he would have to find ammunition somewhere, assuming there was anyone on this station who sold it.

To his surprise, he found exactly the store he was looking not far from the TSF station. It was a weapons shop run by a tall, slender Echani man, and the sign above the entrance indicated that the name of the store was "_Vibrosaw Ville's._" If there was anywhere he could find ammo for an Echani rifle, it was here.

There were only a few people inside the store at the moment, and seeing a welcome shelter from the suffocating crowds, Kiven hurried inside. As he did, a motion sensor detected his entrance and emitted a loud chime.

A pre-recorded voice played over the store's speakers. "_I'm the Commander, and this is my favourite store on Citadel Station._"

Kiven glanced over at Atton. "Who the bloody hell is the 'Commander'?"

"He's the best bounty hunter in the galaxy, bar none," Atton said, not hiding his admiration of the man. "Word is, he used to be in the Republic Special Forces, and he has more than 700 confirmed kills."

He had heard _that_ story from more than a few people during his time on the Outer Rim. There, phony veterans outnumbered the real ones. "No, he wasn't."

"What? How can you say that? You've never even heard of him until now!"

"Because, Atton, real Special Forces operators never brag about it, and they certainly don't boast about how many people they've killed. Believe me, I've met my share of people claiming to be 'Special Forces' who probably couldn't even handle a blaster."

Atton had the look of a man who had just found out that his childhood idol had been revealed as a fraud. While he stood there in unhappy silence, Kiven approached the counter.

Before he could even speak one word, the Echani shopkeeper looked at him with a wide-eyed expression of complete surprise. He slammed his hands down on the counter and spoke something in his native language before switching to basic. "By my ancestors? Kiven? The lead singer of Blacksaber..._in my store?_"

"Excuse me, but do I know you?"

"No, but everyone on Eshan sure knows you! You're a legend!"

"Why?" he asked cautiously, not sure if he wanted to hear the answer.

"Your music, of course. Do you know how many bands you've inspired on my world?" Upon realising that he had forgotten to introduce himself, he added, "I'm Vibrosaw Ville, by the way. Don't ask me how I got my name – it's the one story I can never tell."

Kiven wasn't quite sure how to take this. He was sure that his stint as a singer-songwriter had gone almost completely unnoticed by the galaxy, given that the kind of music Blacksaber had made had been so far from mainstream tastes, and it all seemed so long ago that it might as well have been another lifetime. Still, he figured, it was better to be known for that than his actions in the Mandalorian Wars.

"I...I had no idea anyone really cared about that any more," he meekly replied.

"You were the root from which everything sprang. Every Echani who ever picked up an eight-string has you to thank for it. So what brings you to Citadel Station?"

"I have no idea what I'm doing here, honestly. And I probably won't be leaving any time soon, since my ship was stolen." Upon further reflection, the words "I have no idea what I'm doing here" were a perfect summation of his entire life.

"That is ill tidings, friend. Have you any idea of who might have done it?"

Kiven looked down at T3. "It's probably nothing, but my droid here says that some 'large-breasted albino' was responsible. Of course, it could be just a glitch in his audio/visual circuits."

Ville started at him blankly. "Well I don't know if this helps or not, but there _was_ a rather buxom young Echani lady who passed through here not too long ago. I'd never seen her on this station before, and she looked to be in a terrible hurry. And if my memory serves, she was headed towards the TSF outpost. She could be the one you're looking for, though I must say that no Echani would ever shame herself by stooping to thievery."

Atton clenched his fists. "That little _schutta!_ She's probably sitting in the galley right now, eating all our food, laughing at us...laughing at _me!_"

"If I had to guess," Ville continued, "I'd say this young woman is probably a fan of yours. She took your ship in the hopes that you'd follow her to some place isolated. Then she'd spring her trap."

"Her trap?"

"Yes, her trap. Which, if I had to guess, likely involves making love to you until you die of sexual exhaustion. Not a bad way to go, all things considered."

Atton wasn't about to let that go without a snide remark. "Some guys have all the luck."

"Erm...yes. Anyway, I'm just looking for ammunition for my rifle. You happen to have any 7.62mm in stock?"

"You've come to the right place," Ville answered enthusiastically. "The wrong place being the store across for me, the one run by that Mandalorian _revan._"

Kiven looked back to see a similar weapons shop on the opposite side of the hall, this one named "_Mirv the Mandalorian's Military Merchandise_." Atton was already headed there, much to Ville's dismay.

After purchasing some ammunition (that he dearly hoped he wouldn't have to use), Kiven turned around to find that Kreia had vanished. He was not exactly upset at this, just puzzled, though he suspected she would probably turn up again sooner or late. Atton returned from the Mandalorian weapon shop with a large blaster pistol in his hands, looking like a child who had just found himself a new toy.

"You're not going to believe what I just found back there!" he exclaimed. "An Aratech D-77! They stopped making these things years ago, and they're next to impossible to find. This thing'll punch right through a bantha's hide."

"The D-77? I thought they ceased production of that model after the lawsuit. Something about a faulty power cell that could overload and explode."

Atton brushed his concerns aside. "That lawsuit was just a money grab. People do that sort of thing all the time, trying to extort money from businesses. I'm the sure this thing is perfectly safe, and besides, I only paid one credit for it, so it's hardly a risky purchase."

Kiven frowned, "What do you mean, 'one credit'?"

"Yeah, everything in that guy's shop was one credit. I don't know how he makes a profit, but he did seem a little..." Atton spun his finger around his ear, indicating his low opinion of Mirv the Mandalorian's mental health. "Anyway, let's head to the cantina. I'm frakking _parched._"

He immediately began walking away, leaving Kiven no opportunity to object. Having sworn off alcohol, he didn't want to be faced with the temptation. Still, there were doubtless non-alcoholic beverages available, and more importantly, something to eat. He was positively famished.

* * *

><p>The cantina Atton brought him to was typical of its type, being dark, crowded, and noisy. A Bith band played on-stage, accompanied by a pair of gyrating Twi'leks who were garnering far more attention than the music. Above the counter was a trio of large video screens display a live feed from a swoop race, holding those watching in rapt attention, all of whom were secretly hoping that the race ended in a spectacular crash. In a large room off to the side there were two rows of pazaak tables, filled with people eager to waste their paycheques in the faint hope of striking it rich.<p>

Atton ordered a pint of Juma Juice and a plate of bantha wings, while Kiven restricted himself to a cup of tea and a few proteinloaf slices. It was very bland, as far as culinary tastes went, but he feared that anything more adventurous would upset his delicate stomach. They seated themselves at a table near the stage, while T3, having nothing to do in a cantina, simply stood by the wall and scanned the crowd for any signs of trouble.

"So my guess is that the Exchange stole the _Fall From Grace_," Atton said, taking a swig of Juma Juice. "They're not dumb enough to try attacking you here on Citadel Station, so they stole the ship and took it to the surface, thinking you'd come looking for it. There's only a handful of people working planetside; it'd be a lot easier to take you captive there without someone noticing."

Kiven sipped his tea, finding that it had pleasing, soothing effect. "You're probably right. I just hope those people at the IUA can give us a lead, otherwise we might be stuck here for a long time."

"Yeah, I hope so. I figure my luck's due for a change any time now."

A voice from behind took them by surprise. "Kiven? Is that you? What the hell are _you_ doing here?"

He turned around to see a bald, clean-shaven man standing by the table, holding a cocktail glass in his hand. Something about him was very familiar, but the man's name eluded him.

"I'm sorry, I don't remember-"

"It's me, Larral. I played bass in your band, remember? Never thought I'd see you again...small galaxy, huh?"

His appearance had changed dramatically, thus explaining why he hadn't immediately recognised him. But Kiven had always remained aloof from his bandmates and he knew little about them. That he had been falling-down drunk for most of his performances hadn't helped.

"To answer your earlier question, I'm not doing anything at the moment. What brings you to Citadel Station?"

"My band's got a gig here. We're scheduled to play after those idiots are done." Larral gestured towards the stage with an expression of contempt. "The garbage kids listen to these days...I've heard better sounds out of a trash compactor."

"So what's your band called? What kind of music do you play?"

"We're '_Tremendous Frakking_'," Larral replied proudly, "and we play alternative neo-psycho jizzcore."

"I don't even want to find out what that is," Atton said, taking another swig of Juma Juice.

"Uh, look," said Larral, his tone suddenly turning serious, "you _do_ know the Exchange has a bounty on Jedi, right? It's probably not a good idea to just sit out in the open like this. Security's stretched pretty thin on this station."

"I know that, Larral. They've already tried to capture me once, but I doubt they'll be so stupid as to make an attempt here."

"It's not just the Exchange, Kiven; even the Jedi are out for your blood! A few years ago one of them tried to interrogate me after dragging me onto her ship and throwing me into a force cage! Can you believe that?"

A chill ran down his spine. "This Jedi who interrogated you, she have a name?" He already knew the answer to that question, but he wanted to be sure.

Larral shrugged. "I was kind of drunk at the time, so I don't remember. Won't forget her face, though, that's for sure. Her hair was white as snow."

"Atris..." Kiven hissed. The hate began rising up within him, and it was all he could to keep it from bubbling over.

"Uh look, I'd love to stay and catch up with you, but we're going on-stage in a few minutes. Watch yourself, okay?" Larral disappeared into the crowd just as the music began to wind down.

"Who's Atris?" Atton asked innocently.

"Just someone the universe created when it ran out of joy," he growled. "She's the Jedi Master who has my old lightsaber, and I _know_ she's the one who stole our ship."

"What makes you say that? Like I told you, she's probably dead along with all the other Jedi."

"We should be so lucky! No, she's still alive, and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if she's spent the past ten years trying to hunt me down and kill me."

"Now you're just being paranoid. I don't think-"

Kiven was quick to interrupt him. "She didn't want me exiled, she wanted me _dead,_ Atton! I don't know why she stole the _Fall From Grace,_ but if I had to guess, it's so she can lure me into her clutches and then hack me to pieces with a lightsaber...probably my _own_ lightsaber just for the sake of irony!"

The sheer venom in his voice took Atton off-guard. "Say, why don't you tell me how you _really_ feel?"

But he wasn't finished ranting yet. "You want to know what sort of person she is, Atton? I'll tell you. Most Jedi don't like to talk about their lives prior to joining the Order, but I wanted to find out what Atris' had been like. It turned out she had a brother living on Ord Mantell, so I got in touch with him and he told me a very interesting story."

"Oh yeah? What's that?" Atton asked, sounding disinterested.

"Like me, she came to the Jedi relatively late in life. Her brother told me that he and her sister had grown up in a poor neighbourhood on one of the Core Worlds; I can't remember which. Anyway, because of an anomaly in the way the school district boundaries were drawn up, Atris attended a school filled with students from much wealthier families than her own, and she was teased and bullied mercilessly by her peers simply because her family was poor. Her brother told me that she always resented the fact that they looked down on her and would never invite her to their parties. And you know what, Atton? She didn't change one bit when she became a Jedi. She was always trying to prove to a bunch of imaginary nine-year-olds that she was 'good enough' to go to their parties. I just happened to have the misfortune of coming from an even more impoverished background than she had, which meant she had finally found some she could bully herself."

He nodded, having paid no attention to Kiven's words. "Or maybe she just stole the ship as a joke. You ever think of that?"

Kiven laughed bitterly. "I don't think so. The Atris I remember was completely humourless. The only thing I can see her laughing at is a Sith trying to attack her with a lightsaber, but not being able to because she'd chopped off both his arms."

Atton finished his drink and stood up. "If it's all the same to you, I'm going to head over to the pazaak tables. All the mood swings in this room are starting to make my head spin."

"Fine, just don't lose your clothes this time."

"I'm going to be hearing about that for a while, aren't I?"

Yet he never made it to the pazaak tables. Atton had barely walked five metres before he was distracted by a Zeltron woman whom he quickly engaged in conversation. The woman was dressed in naught but a black, skin-tight bodice that reminded Kiven unpleasantly of that horrid picture of Bastila he'd found in the _Fall From Grace's_ galley.

He turned back to the band just finishing up their gig on stage. How he wished he could be a part of a band again! After Ruslan's death, singing had been the only time he'd truly been happy. Standing with a microphone in his hand, hearing the roar of the quetarra amps and the pounding of the drums behind him, feeling connected to the audience in way that transcended mere speech and sound, _that_ was where his true destiny lay. The Jedi thought it all a "frivolous distraction," but what did they know? Music had been the one true joy in his life.

At least until that crazy redhead showed up.

Kiven didn't know who she was or where she came from, but she was a frequent attendee at their gigs. Without fail, she'd be near the front of the stage, banging her head like a madwoman, slamming into people, and getting into fights with the bouncers which would almost always end with them sprawled out on the floor. He had never once elected to remain backstage with his bandmates after the concert, terrified that the redhead would be there.

He wondered if _she_ had been the one who had stolen the _Fall From Grace._ As insane as it sounded, it was not beyond the realm of possibility.

After finishing his food and drink, Kiven looked around for Atton. To his dismay, he was nowhere to be found, neither at the counter or at the pazaak tables. The Zeltron was gone as well, and he assumed that Atton had left with her.

Now it was just him and T3. Beginning the agonising ordeal of standing up, he decided to go meet with the IUA representative. He had no desire to hear his former bandmate's music, knowing it would only serve as a painful reminder of the path his life could have taken.

Outside, he made a quick scan of the crowds, hoping to catch a glimpse of Atton. But the smuggler was nowhere to be seen, and Kiven knew beyond a shadow of doubt that he was going to get himself in trouble.


	7. Down in Flames

Chapter 7 – Down in Flames

* * *

><p>"Astronomy is the one of the oldest sciences in the galaxy, and one of the most dangerous."<p>

The IUA's compound was small, as space was at a premium on Citadel Station, but well-appointed, with numerous banners bearing the organisation's halo-esque sigil. The individual members were all clad in brightly coloured robes and tunics, embroidered with arcane symbols. Kiven found it odd than a group dedicated to scientific research would display such pomp and pageantry, which only led credence to Atton's claim that their purview extended far beyond mere astronomy.

"How is astronomy dangerous?"

Lena could hardly contain her excitement, and he found it impossible to ignore the flirtatious looks she was giving him. "In the old days, when it was just looking through telescopes or sending probes off to distant worlds, it wasn't dangerous at all. Now research involves travelling to worlds that are often located in lawless and uncharted regions of the galaxy. And with the Republic's resources being stretched so thin, we've been forced to...take up the slack...to put it in the simplest possible terms, and that means branching out beyond our original purpose."

"And that's made you some enemies, I take it?"

"Exactly. And Czerka's been the biggest thorn in our side ever since our involvement with the Telosian Restoration Project began. I won't bore you with the details, but they've been trying to wrest control of restoration zones away from us and our Ithorian partners."

"But what do you need me for?" Kiven wished people would get it into their heads that he was no longer a Jedi and that his days of playing hero were long over.

"For that, you'll have to speak to my superior, Knight Commander Zardaa. Come with me."

_Zardaa? That sounds like a Hutt name,_ he thought as he followed Lena into a large room that was even more opulently appointed than the antechamber he had been standing in. True to his suspicions, the "Knight Commander" was indeed a Hutt, one a distinctive black streak running from head to tail.

Like most Hutts he spoke in his native language, with a voice so deep and bellowing that it made the floors and walls vibrate. "Ah, you must be the Jedi Lena kept going on about! I sensed your arrival the moment you entered this system!"

Kiven hesitated in approaching the Knight Commander. "Ex-Jedi, actually. What do you mean you 'sensed' my arrival? Do you know the Force?"

Zardaa laughed heartily, the laugh of someone who regarded everything that happened as the very height of hilarity. "Does that surprise you, 'ex-Jedi'? Maybe I should have joined your little club! Likely would have fallen to the dark side! Would have made a nice big hole in it when I landed! Ha!"

"So what is it that you need of me?"

"The ship you came here on was stolen and hidden on Telos' surface. I know someone who can help you find it, and I have shuttle that can take you to him. But first, you must do something for us."

"If this is something that's going to involve violence-"

"No! This task must be carried out discreetly. We are looking to find evidence of Czerka's numerous illegal acts so that the Telosian government will move against them. Their offices are in Residential Module 082, they have a secure mainframe that stores all of their financial records and incriminating files detailing their association with the Exchange."

Lena handed him a small, slender datapad. "When you find the Czerka mainframe, simply plug this into the dataport and it will automatically slice into the system and download the relevant files, even ones they've tried to erase. Once it's finished it will leave an incriminating trail of evidence suggesting the romance novelists' guild is responsible."

Kiven glanced aside at her, not sure if he had heard her correctly. "Did you just say, 'romance novelists' guild'?"

Zardaa answered for her. "That's right! 'The Order of the Ripping Bodice'! I don't know what a bodice is or why it should be ripped, but they have been almost as much of a nuisance to us as Czerka. We hope they can be turned against each other."

"But what cause would a guild of romance novelists have to quarrel with you?"

"I don't know!" the Hutt answered angrily. "They just don't like us! And we don't like them! Bah! Why would anyone want to read romance novels anyway? Such a boring and stupid thing to write about!"

To say this whole business felt wrong to him would have been an understatement. "So how am I supposed to get into the Czerka offices? I don't exactly look like your typical corporate type."

"Ha! If I knew that, do you think I would be asking you? But I know that the woman in charge of this station's branch, some _schutta_ named Jana Lorso, has been embezzling money for the past few months. Use that as leverage!"

_Or maybe I could just forget about all this nonsense,_ he thought. The only reason to carry out this task would be enlisting the IUA's aid in finding the _Fall From Grace,_ a goalwhich, if his instincts were correct, would involve a meeting with Atris. That was hardly a motivating factor, to put it mildly. Still, his conscience would not allow him to stand idly by while Czerka undermined the restoration project

"Very well, I will do as you ask," he said, with scant enthusiasm in his voice.

Zardaa slapped his tail on the floor. "Excellent! Make sure you are not followed back here. One more thing: leave your gun with us. The presence of weapons tends to upset the delicate sensibilities of businessmen! Not like us Hutts!"

Kiven left without saying a word more, thinking only of getting off this station at the earliest possible opportunity. The cold, antiseptic durasteel walls seemed to be getting closer and closer by the minute, and he swore the throngs of people were closing in on him.

T3 had been waiting for him outside, but Kreia and Atton were still nowhere to be seen. He didn't want to think about what about sort of trouble they were causing or, in the latter's case, what sort of trouble they were getting themselves into.

* * *

><p>"So! Was your 'Jedi Exile' all that you hoped he'd be?"<p>

Lena turned to face the Knight Commander. "I never thought he'd look so frail. He was in pain...couldn't you see?"

"Ha! I only saw the way you kept staring at him! Like a lovestruck girl!"

"Well, he _is_ rather easy on the eyes. And that voice...I could listen to him reciting share prices from the ISE all day."

"But I do not like those he travels with! The old woman is of no consequence, but the other..." Zardaa trailed off.

"Why? What about him?"

The Hutt struggled to find the words, both in his native language and other tongues. "He...he is like a man whose arms have been torn off, but instead of screaming, he's laughing! He just laughs and laughs and laughs! What could have birthed such a creature? No human, of that I am certain! But Kiven will know what to do. He is a Jedi no matter what he says! The robes never really come off."

* * *

><p>"I need to speak with Jana Lorso. It is of the utmost importance."<p>

"I'm sorry sir, but Director Lorso faces many competing demands on her time. If you wish to speak with her, then you will need to make an appointment." As if to hammer home just how important Lorso's time was, the protocol droid gestured towards a motivational poster that read "_TIME IS MONEY_."

If the receptionist had been a human or any other organic being, it would have been a simple matter to manipulate his mind via the Force. Being a droid, however, necessitated other means. Attempting to persuade it wouldn't work, nor would bribery. Still, he could use the Force against it in other ways. A simple power surge in its behavioural circuitry matrix would cause a system-wide crash, forcing the droid into a restart cycle that would take several minutes to complete.

After doing just that, the Czerka protocol droid began twitching about and flailing its limbs as if it were having a seizure. "S...s...sir, I cannot disgorge frolicking to the nearest lingerie section. There is a rancor in my spoon drawer. Good night." It then fell forward over the desk, continuing to spasm intermittently.

Now it was just a matter of finding out where Jana Lorso's office was, and more importantly, avoiding being seen. With his long black hair and equally dark attire, no one would believe for a second that he had any business being here.

He passed by a large, rectangular room lined with desks, all occupied by dead-eyed Czerkas employees dressed in the company's yellow and green uniforms. No one looked at him as he walked by, too engrossed with whatever soul-crushing task they were engaged in. To his relief, Jana Lorso's office was straight ahead.

_Guess it's time to get into character,_ he thought.

Kiven strolled into the office and found Lorso sitting at her desk, completely absorbed in her work. She did not even notice his approach until he was nearly standing right in front of her.

Lorso glanced up at him, revealing herself to be a Mirialan. "What...who are you?" she exclaimed, looking quite alarmed at Kiven's presence. "I did not have any visitors scheduled for today!"

"I'm Dolan Husar, Czerka Internal Affairs." Kiven had no idea if such a department actually existed within the company, but it sounded plausible.

To his utter amazement, she did not recognise his face at all. Then again, having been a Jedi and the singer of an underground band meant he was probably invisible to corporate types. "'Internal Affairs'...? We have no 'Internal Affairs' department!"

Kiven leaned over the desk, gazing fiercely into her eyes in the hopes of intimidating her. "We're not so much a 'department' as we are outside agents hired on a per case basis. Given the nature of our work, Czerka prefers that our activities remain unknown to the rank-and-file employees."

Lorso was quite clearly rankled at being referred to as a mere "rank-and-file." "Look, I'm going to need to see some ID or credentials or I'm going to call sec-"

He laid his hands down on her desk. "I know you've been skimming off the top, Lorso."

Having a commanding voice had its uses, as she recoiled in fright. "Wh...what? I don't know who you are, but I don't appreciate people coming into my office and making accusations about things they know nothing about!"

He recalled an anecdote he had once heard about the Sith, that their laws existed not to punish wrongdoing, but to punish getting caught. "Oh, you misunderstand me, Miss Lorso. I am not here to accuse you, I am here to _help_ you. You see, it is not your embezzlement of funds that has the higher-ups upset, but your..._indiscretion. _A certain amount of...rational self-interest...is encouraged amongst company executives, but you will not last long if you continue to act so carelessly."

She hesitated in answering, and that was a promising sign. "All right, if you want my attention, you have it."

"According to what I was told, this branch contains a secure mainframe that stores all financial records. This mainframe will be isolated from the rest of this branch's systems for the purpose of keeping it secure...not secure enough, it seems."

His knowledge of the mainframe was enough to convince her that his purpose here was genuine. "What are you talking about?" she asked with a noticeable tinge of nervousness in her voice.

"Show me the mainframe, and I will explain."

Cautiously, Lorso lead him out of the office and into the noisy server room. Another motivational poster by the door depicted a puzzled-looking Czerka employee with a caption that read, "_IS THIS GOOD FOR THE COMPANY?_"

If there was a hell in this galaxy, Kiven was sure that he had found it.

She led him to an isolated computer mainframe. "This is our secure mainframe. But you won't find anything there," she declared with pride. "Did you think I would be stupid enough not to erase all traces of my actions?"

Kiven gave her a condescending smile. "I have no doubt you tried to cover your tracks, Miss Lorso...the operative word here being 'tried'. But are you aware that a 'delete' operation on your typical computer system does not actually erase the data? All it does it allow it to be overwritten. With the right tools, recovering deleted files is child's play. Observe." He connected the IUA datapad to the mainframe's access port. "And there it is. I've got every bit of data you _thought_ you deleted. How did you think HQ got wind of this? In fact, they found your clumsy attempts at concealing your embezzlement to be rather amusing."

Lorso watched all this with growing dismay, completely unaware that he had no interest in her financial records, but rather the company's dealings with the Exchange.

"Only droids and myself have access to this mainframe," she protested. "There's no way-"

"Droids can be subverted. With the right credentials, a disgruntled employee could easily gain control of a droid and use it for his own purposes. You're fortunate that stealing your files was the worst thing that happened. Have you ever seen what happens when a protocol droid goes berserk?"

"Um...no, but-"

"It's not a pretty sight, let me tell you. The droid was very polite as it tore their heads from their bodies...but never mind that. The lesson I want you to take away from all this, Miss Lorso, is that HQ is willing to tolerate corruption, but it is _not_ willing to tolerate incompetence. They are quite willing to..._liquidate_...under-performing assets_. _Do you understand?"

There was fear in her eyes now. Not just nervousness or anxiety, but trembling, quaking terror. Kiven never thought of himself as the sort of person who inspired fear in others. Maybe, he thought, these corporate types liked to talk a tough game in the boardroom, but quickly wilted when faced the threat of actual violence.

Or maybe it was his eyes. "Electric Eye" was what Durlaak had called him, a reference to his ocular implant. But Durlaak had always been a bit touched in the head.

"All right," she said quietly, "you've made your point. Now I will kindly ask you to leave the premises."

"Very well, but remember what I have said, or our next meeting will not be so...pleasant."

He left in a hurry, amazed that it had been so easy to dupe Lorso into believing his words. Or maybe it was not so surprising. The Jedi he'd led to battle against the Mandalorians had swallowed his every word, embracing his cause with a fervour that, in hindsight, was quite disturbing. He had always wondered if he had really been that persuasive, or if somehow his strength in the Force was bending them to his will.

Or maybe people just liked hearing his voice.

T3 was waiting for him outside, and he greeted Kiven with a warbling tone. "No," he said, "I don't think the droids enjoy working there, either."

He did not head straight back to Zardaa. Instead, he circled around through the residential section in the hopes of losing anyone who was following him. Once he was confident that he had not been tailed, he made his way back to the IUA compound, knowing that each step he took was leading him towards Atris. It dawned on him that a confrontation with her was ultimately inevitable – their last meeting had left too many scores unsettled and too much business unfinished.

And what would he say to her when they finally met? Mentally, Kiven was already preparing an array of barbs, insults, and gibes that would devastate her self-esteem. And she was no doubt doing the same, assembling a formidable arsenal of self-righteous bluster and hypocritical condescension.

He dreaded to think how it would all turn out.

* * *

><p>"You return! I knew you would be successful!" Zardaa bellowed.<p>

Kiven gave Lena the datapad, eager to conclude his business with these people. "So what happens now?"

"Now we give these files to the Telosian government, and they will drive these filthy Czerka scum off this station! Many single tears will be shed, I think! Ha!"

"Since you've held up your end of the bargain, we'll hold up ours," said Lena. "You're looking for your ship on Telos, and we know someone down there who can help you find it. His name is Bao-Dur, a Zabrak-"

He twitched. "Did you say Bao-Dur?"

"Yes, do you know him?"

"Of course! We served together in the Mandalorian Wars. He was the one who-" Kiven stopped himself, realising what he was about to say. "Well, we served together. Let's leave it at that."

"He's been working with the restoration project for a few years now," Lena explained. "He helped design the shield system used to isolate individual sectors. If there's anyone who can help find your ship, it's him."

_Bao-Dur...alive! _The news brought him to a state of near-elation. He vaguely recalled that some Republic ships had made it out of the Malachor system before the supernova had obliterated it, but he had no idea that Bao-Dur had been among the survivors. He had given him that terrible order with a wordless nod, delivered via holoprojector, and after that he could remember nothing.

Or maybe he _did_ remember, but his mind kept the memory locked away, lest he be driven to madness.

"There is a shuttle in docking bay C6 that you can take to Telos' surface," Lena continued. "Last time we checked, Bao-Dur was working in Restoration Zone B3. That's one of the Czerka-controlled areas; I'm not sure what he's doing there, but you should try to keep a low profile."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Kiven departed the IUA compound, buoyed by a new sense of purpose. He had met Bao-Dur the first day after he and his Jedi followers had joined the Republic war effort, and the two had become fast friends. Like him, the Zabrak had been a quiet, intensely private individual, yet one driven to avenge the losses his people had suffered at the hands of the Mandalorians.

His elevated mood vanished when he found Kreia waiting outside for him.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" she asked with her characteristic caustic tone. She did not say as much, but he knew that she held a low opinion of the IUA. Then again, Kreia probably held a low opinion of everyone.

"Yes, they've given us a shuttle to-"

Kiven's comlink crackled to life. "_Uh...Kiven? You there?_" It was Atton's voice.

"Atton? Where are you?"

"_I'm in apartment B3. I...I need your help._"

"Why? What's going on?"

"_Just...just get over here! And bring your droid with you!_"

Kiven sighed. "All right, I'll be over there shortly."

Kreia with quick with her reproach. "What degradation has that fool brought upon himself now? If you insist on aiding him at his every moment of need, then how will he ever learn not to behave in the manner of an imbecile?"

"Kreia, Atton's the sort of person who could stick his hand into a live power coupling two dozen times and _still_ not figure out that he shouldn't do it!"

"That may be true," she said. For a second it looked like she would say something more, but Kreia remained silent.

* * *

><p>When Kiven reached apartment B3, he found that the door was locked.<p>

"_Get your droid to slice through it,_" Atton instructed over the comlink.

He looked down at T3. "You heard him. Let's see what sort of trouble he's gotten himself into this time."

T3 extended his multi-function arm, opening up the door's control panel, then connected his scomp link with its access port. It took him but a few seconds before the door opened.

Kiven stepped cautiously into the apartment. It was dirty and cluttered, with a faint but vaguely unpleasant scent hanging in the air. "Atton? You there?"

His voice came from what looked to be a small bedroom off to the side. "Stop! Don't come any further!"

"Why?"

"Just don't!"

He quickly deduced what had occurred. "You've lost your clothes again, haven't you?"

"Um...well, I haven't _lost _them, exactly," he said, sounding like he was desperately trying to cling to his last shreds of dignity. "They're on the floor by the bed."

"So why can't you get them?"

Atton did not reply.

"Atton?"

"B...because I'm...I'm..."

"Come on, Atton, I haven't got all day!" Kiven growled.

"Because I'm chained to the bed!"

T3 let out a low _dwoop_, while Kiven just stared straight ahead, dumbfounded. "Why were you...no, forget it; I don't _want_ to know. Would I be correct in assuming that that Zeltron woman was responsible?"

"Look, it's not what you think, all right? She was with the Exchange, and I thought I might get some information from her. After she'd had a few drinks, of course."

"And let me me guess – one thing just led to another, right?"

"Uh, something like that. Now are you going to help me or not?"

Kiven shook his head. His first instinct was to give him an upbraiding about his foolishness, but that would accomplish little except earning Atton's animosity. "What do you need me to do?"

"Get your droid in here. Maybe he can cut these chains."

T3 signalled his reluctance, but at Kiven's urging he rolled into the bedroom. He heard four sharp _pings_ as the droid's arm cut through the chains, followed by Atton hurrying to get dressed.

"I hope you learned something through all this, at least," Kiven said when he emerged from the bedroom.

"As a matter of fact, I _did,_" Atton replied indignantly. "She kept complaining about some Exchange big shot named Goto. I can't remember what she said, exactly, but she seemed to think that he was the one responsible for the bounty on the Jedi."

"That's something, at least. Now come on, the IUA's given us a shuttle that we can take down to surface."

"Uh-huh. And where exactly are we headed?"

"Restoration Zone B3. There's a Zabrak working in that area named Bao-Dur; we fought together in the war, and if we're lucky he'll be able to help us find our ship."

Atton, however, was elsewhere mentally. His demeanour was not unlike that of a pouting child, and they had barely gone ten paces before he came to a sudden stop.

"All right, let's hear it," Atton said with a sigh.

Kiven frowned. "Hear what?"

"The lecture. You know, the finger-wagging, the sermon, the 'change your ways' speech. Let's get it over with."

"I'm not going to lecture you," he answered flatly.

"Yeah, but you're thinking about it. I can see it on your face...you're just itching to remind me of my 'moral failings', aren't you? You Jedi are all alike."

"Atton, this really isn't the-"

He ignored him and continued with his rant. "You think you're so superior 'cause you lock yourselves in some monastery on mountaintop somewhere and cut yourselves off from everything good in life. Well if you're so superior, then why are all the Jedi dead? Why is it that when one of you goes all dark side, you end up burning half the galaxy to the ground? So don't condemn me just because I enjoy a little vice now and then. Besides, you're not exactly blameless yourself when it comes to that sort of thing, '_Drunken Jedi_'_!_"

_Is that supposed to offend me?_ Kiven thought. _He forgets that I've been offended by professionals. _"I never wound up chained to a bed, though."

"Point. Missing it. Oh well, let's find this shuttle of yours; the sooner we're off this scrapheap, the better."

* * *

><p>The shuttle provided by the IUA wasn't exactly spacious, seemingly designed for a species shorter than your typical human, and that made the painful process of sitting down even more agonisingly drawn out. Kiven took a seat in the cockpit next to Atton, while Kreia remained standing in the rear. He considered telling her his suspicion that Atris had been the one who had stolen the <em>Fall From Grace, <em>but decided against it. She would likely chide him from leaping to conclusions without proof, anyway.

Turning his seat ninety degrees, he observed her out of the corner of his eye. Atton had said she must have been beautiful at one point in time, but if that were true, Kiven couldn't see it. The creases on her face were deep and numerous and the skin was pulled tight over her bones, as if her skull were trying to force its way out of her body. Atton had spoken of "hard living," but he suspected there was more to it than that. Kreia struck him as someone with a heavy axe to grind with the universe, and who had nursed that particular grudge for many, many years.

"Say, can I ask you something?" Atton said as he manoeuvred the craft out of the docking bay. "Do you Jedi ever, you know, tell each jokes or anything like that?"

"Of course we did. We weren't _completely_ humourless, you know."

"Oh really? Then let's hear one."

Kiven was hardly in the mind for joking around. "You probably wouldn't find any of them funny."

"Try me."

"All right, let me think...there's one that goes something like this: there was once a Jedi Master who, after centuries of study, finally discovered the true nature of the Force. One day a young Padawan decided to seek out this Jedi Master, but the problem was that he was lived atop a very tall mountain and reaching him would be next to impossible. Yet he was undeterred, and for the next few days he ascended the mountain, struggling to keep himself from freezing to death or stumbling off one of the many precipices. Eventually he reached the summit, half-dead from cold, hunger, and exhaustion. There he found the Jedi Master he sought, sitting silently in meditation. When the Padawan asked what the true nature of the Force was, the Master just smiled at him and said, 'The Force is a waterfall'. The young Padawan was furious. 'That's it?' he screams. 'That's all you have to say? I nearly got myself killed climbing up this mountain, and that's the best you can do? 'The Force is a waterfall?' A look of confusion spread across the Jedi Master's face. 'What? You mean it isn't?' he says."

Atton chuckled. "That's not bad, actually. Let me have a go at it: why couldn't the Jedi vacuum the corners of his room?"

"Why?"

"Because he didn't have any attachments!"

Amusing, he thought, but not humorous enough to warrant a laugh. "It's too bad I never had a chance to meet Jolee Bindo. Now there was a Jedi who could tell a joke!"

"Why does that name sound familiar...?"

"He was a Padawan who twice defied the Jedi Council, first by getting married, the second by teaching his wife the ways of the Force. After she fell to the dark side, Jolee went into self-imposed exile. But what he was best known for was telling these long, rambling stories under the pretence that there was some moral to be learned from them. If the listener had the patience to endure hearing the entire story, he'd find out that it had no purpose to deliver a truly atrocious pun at the end."

"I'm guessing that didn't endear him to his fellow Jedi."

"It was before my time, but he certainly didn't make any friends in high places. There was a story I heard – and I have no idea if it's true or not – that when Jolee first opened himself up to the Force, his master told him, 'Now you have taken your first step through the door into a larger world.' To which Jolee replied, 'When is a door not a door? When it's ajar.' Things didn't improve from there."

The shuttle rocked slightly as it entered Telos' upper atmosphere. Kiven closed his eyes and reached out with the Force towards the planet's surface. At first he sensed nothing unusual beyond the energy emissions from the force fields that emanated from Citadel Station. Being unable to sense living things through the Force, Telos felt as dead it would have been before the restoration project began.

But then he felt something so terrible it was as though he had been walking across the surface of a frozen lake, only for the ice to give way beneath his feet. Not since the encounter with the Sith Lord on the _Harbinger_ had Kiven felt such a potent source of dark side energy, and for a second he feared that the Sith had tracked them to Telos and were lying in wait.

Fighting off the urge to pull away, he concentrated on the source of the disturbance, trying to pinpoint its location. Before he could learn anything, however, the shuttle's computer began emitting a loud series of alternating high and low tones.

Kiven broke himself from his reverie, noticing that a large red light on the instrument panel was now illuminated. "That doesn't sound good..."

"Someone on the surface just lit us up with a continuous-wave sensor beam," said Atton. "But the only thing that uses-" The high and high low tones began alternating much more quickly, and several more warning lights came on. "Frak! A SAM just lifted off, dead ahead!"

Kiven looked out the window, a saw a point of light streak up from the surface, leaving behind a thin trail of white smoke. A moment later it was joined by a second point of light.

"Merciful fate!" Kiven exclaimed. "There goes another one!"

Atton glanced over at him with cocky grin. "It's not any fun unless they send up three at once!"

As if on cue, a third missile joined the pair already in flight. "You just had to give them ideas, didn't you?"

Muttering a stream of curse words, Atton banked the shuttle hard to left, but manoeuvrability was not something it had been designed for. The first missile exploded beneath them with a loud _thump_, the concussion knocking the shuttle about. T3 squealed in protest, loudly proclaiming their imminent demise, while Atton frantically tried to wring every last drop of performance and agility out their craft as he could.

He wrenched the shuttle into a sharp, upward turn, bringing it inside the second missile's turning circle. Unable to turn fast enough to track them, it flew past them and exploded harmlessly some distance behind.

Atton let out a triumphant cry, but his delight was short-lived. His little manoeuvre had expended the shuttle's momentum, and there was still one more missile racing towards them. He throttled the engines up to their maximum and nosed the craft downwards in the hopes of building up airspeed, but it was too little, too late.

The missile detonated just metres to their left, sending shrapnel flying in all directions. The metal fragments tore through the starboard engine, causing the shuttle to yaw to the right due the sudden imbalance in thrust. T3 wound up thrown onto his side, spinning his wheels uselessly and letting out a continuous stream of expressions that would be considered shockingly vulgar if rendered into Basic. Meanwhile, Kreia remained completely calm, as if she knew she was going to walk away from this unscathed.

Kiven gripped tightly to the arms of his seat, looking in dismay at the bewildering array of warning lights nearly flashing angrily on the instrument panel. He could tell right that there was no way the shuttle could fly on just one engine. The only question on his mind was how much it was going to hurt when they crashed.

Atton fought to keep their crippled craft from tumbling out of control, but despite his efforts they continued losing altitude. "Hold on! This is going to be rough!"

Outside, the rolling green hills of Telos were rapidly drawing nearer. It occurred to him that the Ithorians had done a rather splendid job of restoring the natural beauty of Telos, but that thought vanished when the shuttle clipped the edge of a ridge. The impact nearly threw him out of his seat, and the last thing he saw was the ground rushing up to meet them.

_Oh yes,_ he thought, _this is going to hurt. __This is going to hurt a lot._


	8. The Queen of Ice and Snow

Chapter 8 – The Queen of Ice and Snow

* * *

><p>For the second time in recent memory, Kiven awoke to nothing but intense, all-consuming pain.<p>

But this was a special kind of pain. Every part of his body hurt – his arms, his legs, his chest, his head. Even his hair hurt, as ludicrous as that sounded. It was a pain that would linger, an ache that had been aged to perfection and only brought out for special occasions. In the past he had been shot, stabbed, burned, and hit with shrapnel, but none that compared to the agony he felt now.

A calm, reassuring voice spoke to him. "Kiven? Can you hear me?"

His vision was all a blur and he had no recollection of how he had wound up in this situation. In his younger days this could have been attributed to an alcohol-induced blackout, but as he had not had a drink in seven years, something else must have happened. He tried to answer the man who had spoken to him, but all he could do was moan.

Slowly his sight returned to him, and the blur resolved into the reassuring sight of Bao-Dur's face. He inhaled sharply, breathing in the scent of burning metal. Their ship had crashed, he seemed to recall, and now he was lying on his back, staring up at the roof of their ruined shuttle.

He didn't want to move so much as a finger, knowing the hurt it would bring, but he could not lie here forever, either. Whoever had shot them down would likely be coming this way to ensure there were no survivors.

"Good to have you back, Kiven," said Bao-Dur, grabbing his hand. "Are you able to stand?"

Attempting to move his legs sent a sharp, stabbing pain up his body. "That...remains to be seen." His voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper.

With Bao-Dur's help, Kiven slowly rose to his feet, teeth clenched and eyes watering. Maybe he was fortunate that every part of him hurt, as it masked the pain his back would surely be giving him right now.

"Easy there. You just survived one spectacular crash."

Bao-Dur looked exactly as Kiven remembered, save for his left arm. It had been severed at the elbow and replaced with an artificial hand connected to the upper arm by some sort of repulsor field. He did not recall the Zabrak suffering any major injuries during the war, although given how spotty his memories of that time it was entirely possible that he had simply failed to remember it.

He looked around for Atton and Kreia, who were slowly getting to their feet. "Everyone all right?" he asked.

"That was hardly the most pleasant to arrive on this world," Kreia said bitterly, struggling to conceal her pain. "I would suggest we find a more competent pilot if we wish to avoid a similar occurrence in the future."

Atton was quick with a retort despite his disorientation. "Hey, any landing you can walk away from is a good landing."

"Excuse me," Bao-Dur said, furrowing his brow in suspicion, "but are you the man who was in the 'Pure Pazaak' holovid?"

"Uh...no, that was my clone. He's always going out and doing things to besmirch my good reputation. I _hate_ that guy!"

Bao-Dur looked back at Kiven. "You travel with...interesting...companions. But I have to say, you are the last person I expected to see here. I've tried to get in contact with you over the years, but it was as though you had just disappeared."

"I've spent the last seven years alone on Hoth," he explained matter-of-factly. "I didn't really want to be found."

He just nodded at Kiven, not requiring any explanation. "I understand. We all went through some rough times after Malachor, and I guess we all needed some way to escape. So what are you doing here, if I may ask?"

Kiven looked back in the shuttle and saw that T3 was knocked on his side, completely immobile. "That's a bit of a tale, that is," he said, getting T3 back on his feet. "The short story is, my ship was stolen from Citadel Station, and it was taken to some place on Telos. I was told that it hadn't gone to any of the government-sanctioned landing sites, so I'm not sure where I should start looking."

"I think we should find out who shot us down, first" Atton suggested. "If Czerka's operating down here, they probably wouldn't be too happy to see us, but shooting us out of the sky?"

"You were fired upon by a C-75 surface-to-air missile system," Bao-Dur added. "It was the same system I saw being set up at an old Ithorian research compound not far from here. Czerka's probably has the run of the place by now."

Kiven began looking T3 for any signs of damage. "I can understand the need for security, but a surface-to-air missile system? That seems a touch...extreme."

"Isn't it obvious?" Atton said. "They're up to something they shouldn't be. We should head over there and find out what, exactly. Besides, I'm looking for some payback after they shot down our ride."

T3 rolled out of the wreckage of their shuttle, then stopped when he caught sight of Bao-Dur's remote. Kiven could not quite understand what T3 said just then, but it sounded like a lengthy and vulgar expression of contempt.

"Is that your droid?" Bao-Dur remarked with a grin. "I've never encountered a T3 unit with such a foul mouth."

"Yes, well, he's never had a memory wipe, and I have no idea where he's been for the past seven years. He's bound to have developed a few quirks."

"I'm telling you, it's only a matter of time before he breaks in the head," said Atton, casting a hateful glance at T3. "It's always the same with droids...one day they're scrubbing plasma conduits, the next day they're oiling their wheels with your blood. I wouldn't turn your back on that thing, if I were you."

Everyone ignored him. "If you're well enough for a bit of a hike, Kiven, then I can show you the way to the research station," Bao-Dur said. "It's going to be dangerous, though. There's a mercenary team out there looking for me, but the biggest danger is the wildlife."

"How so?"

Bao-Dur glanced at Kiven's rifle. "That's a Sikka Vinnlight, if I'm not mistaken. Did you purchase it from that Echani on Citadel Station?"

"No, but what does that have to do with anything?"

"The Ithorians imported a wide variety of herbivorous species to Telos, but without any natural predators their numbers quickly increased beyond what the ecosystem could sustain. When 'Vibrosaw Ville' got word of this, he told the Ithorians that there were several carnivorous animals on his homeworld that could effectively control the herbivore population, and for a small price he could arrange their transport from Eshan. The Ithorians agreed, but I don't think they understood just how 'carnivorous' these specimens were."

"What kind of 'specimens' are you talking about, exactly?"

"Around here? There's three we need to watch out for – the ice weasel, the dire rabbit, and the most dangerous of them all, the cave beaver."

Kiven frowned. "Since when are rabbits and beavers carnivorous?"

"When they come from Eshan, it would seem."

By now his pain had gone from unbearable to nearly tolerable, and when Kiven looked back at their wrecked ship he was amazed that he had survived at all. Looking back, his ability to not wind up dead had beenthe one constant in his life. The slums of Nar Shaddaa, the Mandalorian Wars, the Battle of Malachor, his self-imposed isolation on Hoth, these were all things that ought to have killed him.

He wondered how long it would be before his luck ran out.

Atton walked ahead of the group and took a few sniffs of Telos' air. "You know, this feels a lot like the last time I was on Telos."

_Do I really want to know...?_ Kiven thought. "You've crashed here before?"

"No, it involved a high-stakes pazaak game, a half-dozen naked Twi'leks, and enough Juma Juice to drown a herd of banthas. My memory's a bit fuzzy, but I think the entire planet was devastated. Or maybe that was the Sith. Anyway, this place looks a lot more boring than I remember. Guess it beats Peragus, though."

_No, I guess I really _don't_ want to know. _"That reminds me, Atton...you never told me what you were doing on the Peragus Mining Facility."

"All you need to know is that I was there to make a pick-up and a delivery. Unfortunately I crashed my ship into one of the asteroids and got stuck there for almost a week."

Though there was no evidence to suggest it, Kiven wondered if the Exchange's bounty on Jedi had drawn Atton to Peragus. "You crashed? How did that happen?"

His questions irritated him. "I was high on spice and thought the asteroids were candy."

Kiven stopped. "Really?"

"No, actually I was drunk. Speaking of which, there's a bottle on Tarisian ale in our ship's fridge. When we get it back, it's mine. Just letting you know that."

"I'll remember that the next time you call me a 'Drunken Jedi'. I just hope you're sober when flying the ship."

"Sobriety is a lie, there is only drunkenness. Through drunkenness, I gain courage. Through courage, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. Alcohol shall free me."

Kiven clapped in mock applause. "You know, that's brilliant. Horrible, but brilliant."

* * *

><p>Even appearing via holoprojector, the Lord High Researcher was an unnerving sight. Zardaa could never remember what the name of his species was, nor was he compelled to ask, fearing the man would take offence at such a petty inquiry. They might be called "near human," but how "near," exactly, was open to debate. With his blue skin, fearsome red eyes, and jet-black hair, the Lord High Researcher was an imposing man, even to a Hutt. His name was Seth'raxas'ixil'nuruodo, or simply "Seth" for short, and he had risen quickly through the ranks of the IUA, eventually assuming the role of Lord High Researcher after the previous holder of the that tile, Amon Trayus, had been killed by the Sith.<p>

"Has the Exile arrived safely on Telos?"

Even when asking a simple question, Lord Seth's voice was so authoritative, so commanding, that it felt like he were making some grand proclamation. "His shuttle was shot down by Czerka scum, but our scans show that he survived. Very impressive for someone who looks like they'd snap in two when a stiff wind blew up!"

"You, of all people, Knight Commander, should know that the Force transcends the physical. Underestimating him, merely on the basis of his apparent frailty, would be to commit a grievous error, an error I am sure that his enemies have made many times. But returning to the matter at hand, I am appalled at Czerka's actions, but hardly surprised. They are as clumsy as they are stupid. The surface of Telos is closely monitored at all times; did they think that attacking one of our shuttles would go unnoticed? Regardless, the Exile will disrupt their operations to the point where maintaining their presence on Citadel Station becomes untenable. He will do this even if it is not his will."

"Explain!"

"The Exile is an agent of change, destruction, revolution, and what is most relevant to our discussion, _chaos._ He cannot be circumvented, he cannot be manipulated, and he cannot be bought. Should anyone involve him in their petty schemes and plans, he will bring them to utter ruin."

Zardaa shifted his weight about. "How do you know this?"

"Simply by observing the events surrounding him, Knight Commander. He was taken into the Jedi Order, most likely against his will, where he denounced their teachings and defied the Council's refusal to go to war with the Mandalorians, making the Jedi appear weak and ineffectual in the eyes of the galactic public. At Malachor, his actions brought a swift end to the Mandalorians' ambitions. When the miners at Peragus attempted to sell him to the Exchange, the result was the complete destruction of the mining facility and the deaths of nearly everyone on board. So you see, Knight Commander, the Exile spoke the truth when told the galaxy that he ought to be left alone. But it is not just his actions alone that define him. There is also his...artistic endeavours..."

"What? You mean his music? That was garbage and you know it!"

Lord Seth clasped his hands behind his back. "On the contrary, Knight Commander; the Exile's art defines his character, just as it defines the character of a people and their culture. Yes, his music was amateurish in its composition and performance – what else could you expect from someone so young? - but in it he expresses quite clearly his rebellious, disruptive nature. It was loud, aggressive, and vigorous. It's lyrical focus was on death, destruction, decay, and darkness. What sort of man would create this breed of music?"

"Someone we should keep our distance from!"

"Yes, that would be the prudent course of action. But we cannot trust others not to meddle. Kreia has taken a particular interest in the Exile, and I would not like to see him come under her influence. I do not know what she intends, but I doubt it is in his best interests...or anyone's interest but her own."

"We can eliminate her," Zardaa suggested. "She'd never suspect us. That's the advantage of being astronomers...they never see us coming!"

"I have no doubt, Knight Commander, that Kreia holds us in scant regard. This is a mistake she often makes, being arrogant and narcissistic in equal measure. But for now we must abstain from direct action. The Exile must realise at some point what sort of person he is dealing with. Kreia is a sociopath, and while she may possess sufficient willpower and cunning to conceal this quality from others, individuals such as she cannot hide their vile natures for long."

"What of the Exile's other companion, Lord Seth? The one from the 'Pure Pazaak' video?"

"Do you believe he is a threat?"

"I...I am not sure, Lord Seth. When I look at him through the Force, he is like a black hole; an emptiness that cannot be filled. I have never felt anything like it."

"Interesting...but unfortunately, we have been unable to uncover any details about this 'Atton Rand'. This very absence of information is suspicious in itself."

"He needs to be killed!" Zardaa thundered. "He is an abomination!"

"That would accomplish nothing. We must not make the same mistake as Kreia and assume that history is steered by the actions of a few individuals-"

"Bah! You're going to get all philosophical, aren't you?"

Lord Seth ignored his outburst. "History, Knight Commander, does not move at the whim of kings and emperors, despite the proclamations of egotistical individuals. No, it is the sum of the actions of countless trillions, much akin to the process of integral calculus wherein a quantity is obtained by the summation of infinitesimals. A king is every much a slave of history as is the lowliest individual. But perhaps a less abstract example will convince you. Consider a primitive atomic weapon, whose destructive capabilities arises from the fission of a uranium-235 nucleus. The splitting of one atom releases a certain amount of energy, insignificant on its own, but this action happens to result in the release of neutrons, which induce fission in surrounding nuclei. These fission events release high-energy neutrons, which causes more uranium nuclei to split, and thus begins a chain reaction resulting in the rapid, uncontrolled release of energy. So it is with the history; from a vast number of small, unnoticeable events are the great masses of the universe moved. What we see unfolding in the galaxy did not emerge from a vacuum, but is merely the result of forces set in motion centuries and millennia ago. We can no more divert the course of history than we could divert a raging flood."

"So why are we even bothering with the Exile?"

"Because as much as I may dislike the Republic, we must do everything in our power to ensure its survival. For centuries the Jedi Order has been its guardian, but now that they have been brought low by their own failure – quite spectacularly so, I might add – we must focus our attention on the last remaining Jedi. History may be too great for anyone to control, Knight Commander, but sometimes...history needs a little push."

* * *

><p>"I see your wounds from the war are still giving you trouble, Kiven. If you wish to stop for a-"<p>

"No, I'll be all right. I'm not going to let something like a bad back stop me."

"You do not have to act tough, you know. That's not like you."

Bao-Dur's words struck true. The pain in his back grew worse with every step he took, and Kiven wanted nothing more than to just lie down somewhere and wait for it to go away. "Guess there's no fooling you, is there? No use in complaining about it, though. What happened to me was my own damn fault."

"What do you mean? If I recall correctly, you were wounded by a Mandalorian frag mine."

"Yes, I was. The bloody thing sent shrapnel flying into my spine. When I was taken to the medic he told me I'd need surgery to recover completely, but that would mean being sent away from the front lines for several weeks at least, and I was convinced it was my duty to stand by my comrades no matter what. So I told him to just give me a kolto patch and let me return to battle, saying I could do deal with the pain and that I'd get fixed up later. Stupid, stupid thing to do."

Bao-Dur looked puzzled. "But why didn't you get surgery after the war?"

"I couldn't afford it, and I didn't trust any of those Outer Rim doctors to do the job properly." Kiven didn't add that this was because had squandered most of his money on booze and painkillers, both of which he had become addicted to in a frighteningly short length of time. "It's not so bad, really. You look to have had things much worse than I did."

He raised his repulsor arm. "You mean this thing? I like to think of it as an improvement over my old arm, actually. It can hit harder and move faster, and even punch through force fields. And that's not mentioning what it can do for my drumming ability."

Kiven was eager to turn to their conversation towards something other than the war. "You play drums?"

"It's just a hobby of mine. After the war I spent a year playing in Repulsörhead as they toured the galaxy. But I couldn't find peace living that life, especially after the band's lead singers kept dying in these horrible accidents. I wanted to do something constructive, something to make up for all the destruction I'd caused during the war, some I came to Telos. I'd seen this planet before the Sith razed it, and I thought it deserved a better fate, so I lent my skills to the restoration project."

So Bao-Dur had found a place for himself after the war's end, Kiven thought. It was so much like unlike him, who had been completely lost. "Good to see you've done something with your life, at least."

The narrow ravine they were travelling through soon gave way to a sandy shoreline. They had not met a single solitary soul since their crash-landing, and that was just how Kiven preferred things. "It's amazing what the Ithorians have done with Telos," he remarked. "I like it here...wide open spaces, not a whole lot of people...I could see myself settling down on a planet like this." Though if Atris were on Telos, then living here was out of the question.

"Out of curiosity, Kiven, have you heard of the planet Naboo?"

"No, I haven't."

"It was just discovered this year, by the explorer Kwilaan. I have not been there myself, but from what I've heard, it possesses natural beyond that of any other world. I think you would like it there."

"I'll keep that in mind."

The shoreline marked the edge of the restoration zone, clearly demarcated by a line of shield generators which stretched towards the horizon. The lands beyond the shield wall were grey and barren, shrouded in a thick, black fog of toxic vapours. That the Ithorians had managed to accomplish so much in a mere five years was a miracle, though the destruction of the Peragus Mining Facility was sure to hinder their progress.

Bao-Dur stopped suddenly and pointed to a group of nondescript structures in the distance, "There, that's the research facility I told you about. There should be a terminal there that I can use to access the shield network. Problem is, it's swarming with mercenaries."

Kiven took a look for himself and saw that Bao-Dur was not exaggerating. From their vantage point he could see at least two dozen heavily-armed men wandering around the facility, and there were likely more inside. The mercenaries had made no effort to hide their surface-to-air missiles, and they had arranged the wheeled launcher vehicles in a hexagonal pattern surrounding the installation.

He unslung his rifle and looked through the rangefinder. "This doesn't look like a research facility," he said.

"It used to be a Republic military base," Bao-Dur replied. "I suspect that's the reason Czerka's so determined to take over the restoration project."

"More importantly, I see a shuttle on one of the landing pads." At this distance, Kiven figured, he could probably pick off the patrolling mercenaries with his rifle, yet he knew that if he put a man in the cross-hairs he would find himself unable to pull the trigger. Killing someone who was trying to kill him was one thing, but coldly extinguishing his life at a distance was quite another.

Getting to the base would involve crossing a narrow brook hemmed in by trees and undergrowth. With any luck, it would conceal their approach from the mercenaries, although there was too much open ground between the brook and the facility for them to get anywhere near it without being spotted. He lamented that a fight was inevitable, a fight not against homicidal droids, but against living creatures of flesh and blood. If the war had taught him anything, it was that he had absolutely no business whatsoever on the battlefield.

His mind went back to a story Ruslan had told him about boot camp. "_The shuttle dropped us off at night. It was a trick they used to keep us disoriented and off-balance, making sure we were too scared and confused to think for ourselves. Then all of a sudden these blinding lights came on, and standing in front were the drill sergeants. We couldn't see their faces 'cause the light was coming from behind them. They were just dark silhouettes...these faceless black demons. A second later they were on us __like rabid nexus__, __hollaring__ and swearing at us, __yelling at me to go this way and that way, __screaming__ that we were all worthless pukes, that anything in our recruitment contracts could be changed and any promises made to us could be __tossed out the window. But one thing that sticks in my mind after all these years is one of the drill sergeants promising to make us into "the __best__ frakking killers in this whole damn galaxy__." __And don't you know how proud that made me feel? For the first time in my life I felt like someone important. I wasn't poor trash no more, I was a soldier. I would be the ultimate killing machine. They were going to break me down and rebuild me in their own mould, and I believed every word they told me._"

Kiven forced himself back into the present. There had to be a way to get into that base without resorting to violence...

Bao-Dur came to a sudden halt. "Stop! Everyone down!"

The group took cover behind a large cluster of roots. "What is it?" Atton hissed.

"There's a cave beaver just ahead." His voice was barely above a whisper.

Atton drew his blaster and raised his head over the twisted mass of roots, scanning the area ahead of him. "I can't see anything."

Kiven took a look for himself, and likewise saw nothing. His heart started pounding – never a good thing – and a thousand images of some vicious, bloodthirsty predator flashed his through his mind. Then the underbrush began to rustle, and a moment later the dreaded cave beaver emerged.

At first he thought Bao-Dur had been putting them on. The creature was a large rodent covered in thick brown fur, with a paddle-shaped tail and a set of almost comically large incisors. It hardly looked like the fearsome predator Bao-Dur had made it out to be. "Cute" and "cuddly" seemed far better descriptors.

Atton reached the same conclusion. "I don't believe this! You got me all worked up over nothing!"

Bao-Dur glared at him. "Keep your voice down!"

"Why? That thing looks like something you'd stuff and mount on your wall!"

"That's no ordinary rodent! It's got a mean streak a light-year wide! Those teeth can gnaw through solid durasteel!"

Kiven began loading rounds into his rifle. "Maybe I can take a shot at it?"

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," said Bao-Dur, shaking his head. "Shooting a cave beaver will only make it angry."

The sound of men approaching silenced their discussion. A half-dozen mercenaries had gathered on the opposite side of the brook, each one heavily armoured and carrying a heavy repeating blaster. They looked to be conducting a sweep of the area.

"Keep your guard up," said one of the mercenaries. "Corrun Falt says this guy is dangerous."

"Wait, what's that over there?"

"Is it the Jedi?"

"No, it's...aw_ frak!_"

They caught sight of the cave beaver lurking by the edge of the water. To see six hardened mercs cowering before a furry rodent would have been laughable, but what happened next would haunt everyone's dreams for weeks to come.

"Grife, we lost three squads last week to these damned things! Let's all just back away _real _slow..."

One of the men had other ideas. "Frak it! I say blast em!" He levelled his blaster at the cave and beaver and fired, all of his shots missing by a wide margin.

It all happened so fast Kiven could barely make sense of it. The beaver turned to face his attacker, then leapt at his throat. A split second later, the merc's head rolled off his body.

"_Merciful fate!_"

All hell broke loose. The five men remaining men opened up with their repeating blasters, laying down a barrage of fire that accomplished nothing except driving the cave beaver into a berserk fury. Kiven watched in horror as it gnawed off a man's arm, then disembowelled him with its claws. It leapt and back forth amongst the mercenaries, leaving a trail of severed limbs and heads in its wake.

Despite the carnage, Kiven saw a way into the facility. He reached out to the murderous rodent through the Force, and though his inability to sense living things made it difficult, he managed to convince the cave beaver to head towards the nearby base. Driven by a bloodlust that would shame even the fiercest beasts of Dxun, the cave beaver needed little urging to continue its rampage.

While they made their way towards the facility, Atton started cursing a blue streak. "These things live on Eshan? Frak that! This explains so much about the Echani..."

Up ahead, the base exploded into a furious torrent of blaster fire and shouting. T3 emitted a low howl, expressing his shock and dismay at everything that had happened up to this point.

"I know, T3," Kiven said, looking down at the droid. "If I write a story about this, I'm leaving out this part."

The rest of the mercenaries were scattering in all directions, and those who had chosen to stand and fight had found themselves brutally dismembered.

Bao-Dur led the group into one of the small, weathered permacrete structures. A number of crates bearing the Czerka logo stored here, but a quick inspection revealed that most of them of them were empty. "The Republic stored large quantities of weapons and munitions in bunkers like these. It protected them from the bombardment, and Czerka's been eager to get their hands on them. Looks like they were just about to start packing them up before we got here." He quickly located a control console that displayed an image of every restoration zone on Telos' northern hemisphere.

"My passcodes still work...good...I should be able to access the shield network from here."

Kiven kept his eyes on the door, expecting the mercenaries to return, or worse, the cave beaver. "How is that going to help us find my ship, exactly? The TSF said it wasn't taken to any of the sanctioned landing sites."

"It will have to be somewhere within the areas bounded by the shield network," Bao-Dur explained as he worked the console. "The atmosphere outside it is polluted with acidic vapour; landing a ship there would be like sealing it in a hangar full of hungry mynocks. So your ship is probably at some unsanctioned landing site – somewhere within the shield grid, but not one of the listed facilities."

"Better make quick, Bao-Dur. Those mercs are going to be back any minute now."

His exhortation was unnecessary, for Bao-Dur had a gift for working with technology that bordered on unnatural.

"I've got it – a small anomaly in the shield system. It looks like power is being drawn to create a shield over a small section of the north pole, but there's nothing there except an old irrigation facility that's been abandoned since the bombardment."

Kiven frowned. "An irrigation facility...at the north pole?"

"From what I understand, it uses a nuclear reactor to melt sections of the polar ice, which is then sent to lower latitudes to irrigate agricultural sectors."

"A nuclear reactor? That's hardly the power source you'd want to use for that purpose. If it experienced a meltdown, it'd spread radioactive contamination across the croplands."

"You're right, that was a rather short-sighted decision on the builders' part. But no one is supposed to be there, yet the shield has been extended over its location. That makes no sense."

"Maybe the Ithorians want to reactivate the irrigation system? That sort of thing would be useful to the restoration effort."

"I know this planet better than anyone, Kiven, and the Ithorians have no interest in reactivating that facility for the reason you mentioned. The strange thing, this console is telling me that the shielding over the pole has been in place since the restoration project began more than five years ago, but there's no record of any activity there during that time."

"We should investigate this," said Kreia, making a jarring intrusion into their conversation, "I feel it is our best bet for finding the _Fall From Grace._"

Kiven gritted his teeth, knowing that the next few hours were going to be thoroughly unpleasant. "Then let's take the shuttle and go. Something tells me that ravenous Echani wildlife isn't the worst thing on this planet."

* * *

><p>"Take care to avoid any more surface-to-air missile batteries...I do not desire a repeat of your last attempt at flying a shuttle."<p>

Atton said nothing, but from the look on his face he wanted nothing more than to strangle Kreia with his bare hands. It was quite clear she took great satisfaction in antagonising him, and Kiven wondered how a woman of her age could be so childish and petty.

Every so often he would look out the cockpit window, and as the minutes went by he saw the rolling green hills of Telos turn to barren tundra, then to an endless sheet of ice and snow. This was merely the result of the planet's axial tilt, he knew, but Kiven liked to think it was due to Atris' presence.

"There's something you should know, Kreia," he said. "I think Atris, my old master, was the one who stole our ship. I don't have any evidence, but I...I just know it's her. This whole business with the _Fall From Grace_ is her way of forcing a confrontation."

He expected Kreia to reproach him for making this unfounded assertion, but instead she nodded in agreement. "Indeed, I sensed the presence of a powerful Jedi on this world. I suppose I should not be surprised that they have taken an interest in you...and Atris would have more cause than most."

"And now I'm flying straight towards her, when I should be flying away from her as fast as I possibly can! Those seven years I spent on Hoth weren't easy, and there were days when I wanted nothing more than to just lay down and die. But there was always one thing that kept me going, one spark of light that I could cling to even in the darkest hours of despair, and that was knowing that I would _never have to see that woman again!_"

Kreia remained unmoved. "Whatever hatred you bear for Atris, you must put it aside in your dealings with her. I believe the Force has brought you here for a reason, and it is better to pull upon a thread than to cut it off in anger."

"But don't you see, this is all part of some...some _scheme_ of hers! I was her pawn from the day she decided to take over my tutorship. I was to be her perfect student, someone she could parade in front of the Jedi Council as proof of the superiority of her teachings. But my going off to war threw a spanner in the works, and Atris never forgave me for it. If you had suffered that woman's presence for years as I did, if you had endured her so-called 'tutelage', then you'd know what a snake in the grass she is. No good can possibly come from getting involved with her."

"If she seeks to use you for her own ends, then you must determine what those ends entail. Now that the Jedi are all but extinct, she will aim to rebuild it in her own mould. What would such a Jedi Order look like, do you think? Would it be reborn in a form you consider desirable?"

"A Jedi Order...led by her...it would be no better than the Sith!"

"Then you must meet with her. Determine her motives, and ascertain whether she is a threat. Do not see every enemy as an enemy – see them instead as an ally, whether they realise it or not. This situation may yet work to our advantage."

She said nothing more after that, leaving Kiven to wonder what it was, exactly, that he was supposed to be doing. So far he had been tossed from one world to another by forces beyond his control, and aside from some vague notions of stopping the Sith and preserving the Republic, he had no aim or purpose.

"I remember you speaking of your master quite often during the war," said Bao-Dur after a minute or so of silence in the shuttle. "You were very creative in the terms you used to describe her."

Kiven smiled at the memory. "I must admit, I had a lot of time to think them up."

Bao-Dur began rattling them off. "'The White Bitch', 'The Angel Witch', 'The Whorehouse Madam of Dantooine', 'The Abominatrix', 'The South End of Northbound Bantha'..."

"'The Whoreacle', 'The Mistress of Distress', 'The Jedi Whore Keeper'...I came up with a lot of those, didn't I?"

"Yes, and I seem to recall a great many of them involved various permutations of the word 'whore'..."

"Because that's what she is, Bao-Dur! Atris is like a woman who sits on your back, choking you, making you carry her everywhere she goes, and all the while constantly assuring you that she feels sorry for you and that'd she do anything to help you...anything, that is, except _getting off your back!_"

Bao-Dur didn't get a chance to respond, as the shuttle was rocked by an explosion that nearly threw him out of his seat. None of them had to read the damage readouts to know that their vessel had just taken fatal blow.

"I don't believe this!" Atton howled. "It's not my fault! No one has this kind of bad luck..._no one!_"

They were losing altitude, Kiven could tell, but not nearly so rapidly as they had during their last crash-landing. That meant the inevitable impact with the ground might not be quite as painful as before...

Atton pushed the shuttle's throttle as far forward as it would go. "There's some sort of mesa just ahead! I'm going to put us down there!"

Kiven felt the shuttle accelerate and realised he was wrong. This _was_ to going hurt terribly, likely more so than the last time. As the snowy surface rapidly grew nearer, he thought about Jolee Bindo and how he had been shot down over Ukatis and subsequently taken prisoner. At least Jolee had gotten a wife out of the deal. All Kiven was going to get out of this was a new definition of pain and suffering.

He looked back at his companions. "Listen, if I get knocked unconscious, then don't let Atris touch me! Don't even let her get near me until I'm awake! If she gets her dirty hands on me, I'll never be clean again!"

"Sure thing, boss!" Atton said, struggling to speak over the screaming of the engines. "Maybe she can 'put her dirty hands' on me instead!"

They were second away from impact, but all Kiven could do was stare at him in abject horror. "You...you'd actually go for her, wouldn't you? _DO YOU HAVE ANY FRAKKING STANDARDS WHATSOEVER?_"

* * *

><p><em>He is here.<em>

Brianna awoke from troubling dreams with a jolt, immediately aware that the Exile had reached the Telos Academy. She hurriedly got dressed, grabbed her vibroblade, and made her way into the central chamber. How she wished she still had her father's ritual brand! It had been five years ago, but the loss of that blade still stung her deeply. For an Echani warrior to lose her weapon in such a manner, especially one that had been in her family for generations, was immensely humiliating.

Her sisters had already gathered alongside her mistress. Clearly, Brianna had overslept again. "It's about time you got here!" Atris snapped. "A shuttle just crashed on the plateau, and I sense the Exile on board."

"'Crashed'?" Brianna said innocently.

"Someone or something shot it down. I want you to go topside and find out what happened, then bring the Exile to me. If he resists, do whatever is necessary to subdue him."

"We will not fail you, mistress," said the eldest Handmaiden.

Brianna followed her sisters as they made their way towards the surface access corridor. Her heart was pounding anticipation. Had the Exile come to wreak vengeance upon them for the theft of his ship? As revenge for being cast out? Or was he here merely to speak with her mistress?

The others were pondering the same question. "Do you think he'll attack us?" said the second-youngest. "Do you think he's a threat?"

"If he is," replied the eldest, "then I shall take great pleasure in killing him."

The second-eldest looked back at Brianna. "And _you,_" she sneered, "would do well to stay out of our way, lest your incompetence hinder us."

"No, let her be the one to approach the Exile," the eldest suggested. "Let her be the one to bear the brunt of his wrath!"

She cursed under her breath. The man Atris had warned them about, the one whom she had repeatedly declared to be evil incarnate, had finally finally come to Telos, and even now all her sisters could do was find new ways of degrading her.

The external doors opened and they were greeted by a blast of cold, polar air. Brianna had spent years wondering what the Exile was truly like, and now she was finally going to have her answer.

Assuming he didn't kill her first.

"I'm getting real tired of this," Atton said as he extricated himself from the cockpit. "You sure didn't pick up Carth Onasi's curse during the war or something?"

Kiven ignored him. Kreia and T3 were unhurt, but Bao-Dur was laying on the shuttle floor, not moving. He checked his pulse, relieved that he was still alive, but he couldn't tell just how badly the Zabrak had been hurt. If he had suffered a concussion from the impact, then he'd need time to recover, and Atris was the last person he would ever entrust the care of his friends to.

He got his feet, surprised at how little pain he felt. Or maybe the prospect of meeting with Atris was just so horrible the pain felt trifling in comparison.

Atton tried opening the shuttle's hatch, and when it refused to budge, he gave it a few goods kicks until it swung free. "This is how the Jedi greet us? Frak them!"

"I do not think this is Atris' doing," said Kreia, standing up. "She would not be so crude."

A wave of cold air swept into the shuttle through the open hatch. Kiven followed Atton and Kreia outside, his feet sinking into the deep snow. T3 followed reluctantly behind him, struggling for a while to gain traction and complaining that the low temperatures were going to cause his joints to seize up.

Having spent seven years on Hoth, he was no stranger to the biting chill of Telos' north pole. He looked around and saw, through the driving snow, four pillars of stone surrounding the mesa. In the distance was a small grey structure which he guessed was the entrance to the irrigation facility.

Kiven paused. Squinting his eyes, he thought he saw five or six figures in white emerging from the structure. Yet he was soon provided with a far more immediate danger.

"Irritated declaration: there you are, Jedi. We have expended far too much effort in tracking you down."

Three HK droids stood before them, and like one he had encountered at Peragus their vocabulators had been tuned for maximum smugness.

"Quick clarification: but now that we have found, we can proceed with the facilitation of communications."

"Unnecessary addendum: and the termination of hostilities."

T3, sensing that no good was going to come of us, moved behind a large snowdrift. Atton, meanwhile, started brandishing his blaster and talking trash. "You want a piece of me, huh? You assassin droids couldn't even win in a fair fight. Why don't you come take a ride on the Atton Rand Express, the non-stop night train to _pain_?"

The HK droids ignored him, evidently concerned only with Kiven. "Probing query: we are curious as to why you have travelled to the north pole of Telos. Our scans nothing of interest in this area save for the abandoned irrigation facility."

Kiven reached for his rifle. "I heard there's a man up here who makes toys for Wookiee children on Life Day. I wanted to see if he actually existed."

"Dismissive retort: your poor attempt at humour is most likely a futile means of concealing your fear. Eager threat: but we would be all too happy to extract your motives for coming here once we place you in torture restraints."

Before he could respond, Atton started shooting, and less than second later the air was filled with blaster fire. Kiven dove for cover behind the snowdrift, ignoring the jolt of pain that shot up his spine. "How did those things get here so fast?"

"I don't know!" shouted Atton, sticking his head up to fire off a few shots. "Why don't you go ask them?"

The trio of HK droids were laying down a steady barrage, hoping to keep them in cover while they advanced on their position. Taking a deep breath, Kiven reached out through the Force, taking note of the pauses in the firing, and when he was sure that sticking his head out wouldn't earn him a blaster bolt to the face, he popped out of cover, put one of the HK droids in his rifle's cross-hairs, and squeezed the trigger. Even a full metal jacket round wouldn't penetrate their armour, but there were gaps in their durasteel plating...and with the Force guiding his aim, the bullet slipped between the plates and penetrated the droid's power core.

It exploded with a dull _thump_, sending flaming debris flying in all directions and throwing the remaining two HK droids to the ground. They immediately righted themselves and resumed their unrelenting barrage.

The sound of explosions and blaster fire was all too much for Kiven, who found himself unwillingly drawn back into his dreaded memories of the Mandalorian Wars.

_Bodies burning in the fields..._

He took a sharp breathing, forcing himself to think only of the cold air and chill wind. And once more he stood up and aimed his rifle...

* * *

><p>Brianna had barely gone one metre before the shooting started. One second there had been no sound but the wind, the next the air was filled with a cacophony of blaster fire. To right her was the wreckage of a shuttle, and to her left saw three figures in the distance who had taken cover behind a large snowdrift. They were engaged in firefight with three assailants, though at this distance she could not make them out clearly.<p>

"You, come with me," her eldest sister said to another. "We'll investigate the shuttle. The rest of you, secure the area!"

With the wind whipping at her face, Brianna led the remaining Handmaidens towards the firefight. When she drew nearer, she saw that the Exile and his companions were battling against a trio of droids.

Then she heard a loud _crack,_ and one of the droids disappeared in a ball of flame.

A few seconds later, she heard another loud _crack._

That wasn't the sound of a blaster, but a firearm. As a child, her father would take her on hunting trips on those rare occasions when he had enough time to spend with her, and the sound of him firing his rifle sounded very much like what she was hearing now.

_Stay focussed!_ Brianna told herself. As much as her mistress despised the Exile, she would doubtlessly be upset if they let him get killed.

Another gunshot, and another one of the droids exploded. She quickened her pace despite the deep snow hindering her movements, and soon she was close enough for a clear glimpse at her targets. There were two men, one with short, brown hair and the other with long, black hair, along with a third individual wearing loose-fitting robes.

_Which one is the Exile?_ she wondered. Brianna had no idea what he actually looked like.

The brown-haired man stood up from cover and stared firing rapidly at the remaining droid. "_Let's finish this!_" she heard him cry. "_Atton Rand Express, comin' through!_"

* * *

><p>There was only one HK droid left, and if it had any sense, Kiven figured, it would have turned tail and run. But it had been programmed with far too much pride to retreat, and so it continued advancing on their position, even as Atton filled it with enough blaster energy to power an office building. It fell to the ground in a shower of sparks, its last utterance being "<em>Ominous statement: we shall return!<em>"

Once more the air was silent. "Everyone all right?" Kiven called out, letting his gaze linger on Kreia, who had not so much as lifted as finger to help them during the battle.

Atton holstered his blaster. "Yeah, I'm fine. No thanks to the old hag here."

Before Kreia could deliver a suitably biting remark, T3 began beeping and shrieking like it was on fire.

"What's gotten into you?" As skilled as Kiven was at understanding Droidspeak, even he couldn't make sense of what T3 was saying.

Then he heard a woman's voice, cold and commanding. "Lay down your weapons!"

It was the strangest sight he had ever seen. When Kiven turned around, he saw four Echani women approaching him, each dressed entirely in white. And every one of them was identical in appearance, down the smallest detail. That meant they were sisters, if he remembered what he'd read about Echani physiology, but it was no less unnerving for that.

A moment later they were joined by two other Echani women, and they too looked identical to the others. _Six sisters?_ Kiven wondered. _Someone on Eshan was rather prolific._

"There's an Iridonian in the shuttle," said one. "Unconscious, but alive."

The thought of entrusting Bao-Dur's care to Atris' servants was repugnant, but it was far preferable to letting him to freeze to death out here. "That man is my friend," Kiven said, "and I'm not going anywhere without him."

"He will be taken care of," said the first Echani sister. "Now hand over your weapons, or we will be forced to take them from you. I will not ask you again."

Maybe his eyesight was failing, or maybe it was just a trick of the light, but this Echani looked different from her sisters somehow, although Kiven could not say what it was. Perhaps it was simply because she was the only one who didn't look like she wanted to beat him to death with her bare hands.

"All right, let's get this over with," he muttered, shoving his rifle into the Echani's hands.

"I'm going to jail again, aren't I?" Atton whined. "I can take crashing my ship, and I can take going to jail, but crashing my ship _and_ going to jail?" He tilted his head towards the sky. "_You've gone too frakking far this time, universe!_"


	9. Heartbreaker

Chapter 9 – Heartbreaker

* * *

><p>Never in Brianna had her expectations so completely and utterly failed to match up with reality. The mental image Atris had given her of the Exile was that of a terrifying figure – a hulking, muscular beast of a man, with sulphurous yellow eyes and a face that was locked into a permanent expression of murderous rage.<p>

Yet the man she was presently escorting through the Telos Academy could not be more different.

The first thing Brianna noticed was just how thin and frail he looked, almost to the point of emaciation. No doubt this was due to the time he had spent on Hoth, but she couldn't imagine him looking much different when he was well-fed.

And what he _did_ look like was something striking indeed. His hair was long and black, reaching down to his lower back, and his clothing was almost as dark – black jacket, white shirt, black trousers, and there was a strange pendant around his neck that vaguely resembled a tuning fork. But his most noticeable feature were his eyes. One was pale blue – the same colour as Brianna's – and the other was gold, likely an ocular implant of some sort. A scar running vertically through the brow suggested he had lost his natural eye in some violent confrontation.

And while she wanted to believe she was above noticing such things, he was very handsome, in a delicate sort of way, and this fact was not lost on her sisters, who kept stealing glances at him as they led him deeper into the academy. Brianna wanted to chide them for it, until she realised that she had hardly taken her eyes off the Exile since apprehending him.

Then there was his weapon, an Echani-made rifle that was very similar to the one of her father had owned. Had he obtained it from that Echani shopkeeper on Citadel Station? It looked too well-used and worn to have been purchased new. Brianna handed it to her eldest sister, not wanting to be reminded of the happier days of her childhood.

The Exile's companions were a strange lot – an old woman, a smarmy-looking man in a brown leather jacket, and a T3 utility droid. The man in the jacket was spewing an endless stream of semi-coherent complaints about the unfairness, injustice, and egregiousness of it all, to the point where Brianna wished one of her sisters would hit him.

"Atton," Kiven said softly, "would you be _quiet?_ Let's not make a bad situation worse."

"Worse? How could things _possibly_ get worse?"

"There could be more of those cave beavers here, for one thing."

Brianna froze. Cave beavers on Telos? She was vaguely aware that off-world wildlife was being brought here as part of the restoration project, but what sort of madman would bring _cave beavers_ to this planet?

Just then she heard the Exile emit a soft groan, and when she looked back she saw Atton grabbing on to his arm to keep him from falling. "You all right?"

"I...I sense a disturbance in the Force, but there...there's something strange about it. I don't like this...we should make our stay here as short as possible."

"_Disturbance in the Force?_" _What is he talking about?_ There was fear in Kiven's now, though of what, Brianna could not say. Having deafened herself to the Force, there was no way of telling what it was he felt.

She looked away, but like the sun, she felt his presence even without looking at him. It was like an echo, a voice calling out from the darkness, so powerful in its resonance that she thought it might shake the walls of the Telos Academy. Atris had warned her countless times about the Exile's strength in the Force, and those warnings had not been exaggerated.

The rest of her sisters left with the Exile's companions, leaving Brianna alone with him. He ignored her completely, and while she wanted desperately to ask him about the "disturbance" he had sensed, she felt it better to keep her mouth shut. If she wound up stowing away on his ship as her mistress had asked, she would have ample opportunity to ask him later.

The thought of leaving with the Exile had been terrifying, but now that she had met him, it did not seem so terrible. Brianna could not sense any malevolence from him, and she wondered if Atris' fears were groundless. Yet anxiety clung to her like a cloak; a sense of foreboding and impending doom that would not go away. Pausing to reflect upon her fear, she realised it did not stem from the Exile's presence, but rather one of his companions...the one he had called Atton. There was something horrid and monstrous about him despite his mundane appearance, a sensation Brianna could find no words to describe. It was like an emptiness, a vacuum, a gaping wound. The fear grew in her mind until the danger posed by the Exile seemed utterly insignificant. Just what had they brought to the Telos Academy? How could the others be so oblivious to the _true_ threat?

But the fear departed as soon as it had arrived, leaving her alone with the Exile as he stood before the walkway leading to Atris' meditation chamber. She left him there, taking one look back at him as she walked away.

Kiven did not look back at her.

* * *

><p>"In jail again. Joy of joys." Atton had not relented with his complaints even after being tossed into a makeshift force cage along with Kreia. "What is this place, anyway?"<p>

"A training ground for Jedi. It bears the likeness of an academy, yet there are no students, only those who are deaf to the Force. Most curious..."

"A Jedi Academy, all the way out here? I thought Telos was where the Jedi sent their washouts."

"It is a place hidden from the galaxy, much like enclave on Dantooine. So, Atris...this is where you have chosen to wait out the storm. A clever move, but I wonder if it will save you in the end..."

Despite the narrow confines of his cell, Atton still had enough room to pace about. "Whatever this place is, the sooner were out of here, the better. Being around so many Jedi makes my skin crawl."

Kreia shifted her posture, like a predator smelling blood, and Atton immediately regretted uttering those words. "Why? What is it about this place that causes you such fear?" she asked innocently.

"N...nothing! You know how Jedi are. The way they just stand there judging you...what right do they have to do that? They're all frakked in the head...you know what I'm talking about!"

"No I do not. What is it that you know?"

Atton tried to back away, only to receive a painful shock from the force cage. "What are talking about? I don't know any-" His face suddenly became an anguished grimace. "What are you..._gaaaarghh...get out of my head!_"

"Do not resist, let me follow the root...deeper...deeper into the filth and mire. When battle is upon you, I see your true face. It is the face of a depraved, murderous beast. Let me open the door...let me see your face!"

He clutched his head in his hands. "_Stop it...arrrrghhh..._"

"Ah...there it is, eating away at you like a cancer. Even after so many years of life I am appalled at the depravity men are capable of. You are utterly beyond shame, beyond even the most meagre scraps of decency. What would Kiven do if he knew what you truly were?"

"He...he's a Jedi, he...he would..."

"...forgive you? He would strike you down without hesitation, murderer! Can you not see it in his eyes? He already suspects your nature...how far would you go to conceal it from him? What price would you be willing to pay?"

Atton's bravado had all but evaporated. "The others did far worse things than ever I did!"

Kreia's voice became yet more contemptuous, though he did not believe it possible. "How little you know of yourself! Your mind is a fortress that has been ransacked and pillaged, and now you are left as something less than a man. We all wage war with our pasts, yet you know nothing of yours. You are a crude thing, murderer, but you have your uses. Even a man who has nothing can still offer his life. There is a hunger in this galaxy that cannot be sated, and perhaps, at the right moment, you might turn aside disaster. You will serve the Exile...until I release you."

"You want me to be your pawn, Kreia? Fine, I'll be your pawn. But it'll be your undoing. Mark my words...one of these days, I'm going to kill you."

"You will do no such thing. Raise your hand against me and I shall make you suffer like no man before. Blind obedience was your master once, and you shall learn to embrace it once again. Understand this, murderer...you were made as you are, and you can just as easily be broken. Now it is time for you to sleep, vile one. I grow weary of your prattle, and I need no more distractions."

* * *

><p>Although he rejected many of the tenets of the Jedi Order, Kiven was fully aware of the dangers of giving in to one's hatred. But there no force in the galaxy could stem the hate rising within him when saw Atris striding across the walkway.<p>

The Jedi Historian had not changed one bit. She still wore the same Ansatan-style robes, still bore the same cold, sanctimonious look on her face, and still carried herself with the same insufferably proud gait. There were some people who concealed a warm, loving heart beneath an icy shell, but Atris was not such a person. Beneath the cold exterior, one would find only cold water.

Yet despite his hatred, there was no need for Kiven to act on it, at least not with something as crude as violence. Atris had once taught him that the two most powerful weapons in any Jedi's arsenal were Time and Patience. Against a woman like her, he figured, the two most powerful weapons were Mockery and Ridicule. Very few things in the galaxy could stand against them.

Yes, a fight we was coming, though it would be a fight with words, not with weapons. And it was a fight he was determined to win.

Atris was almost ten metres away from him now...yet even that was far too near for his liking. Kiven knew he had a powerful voice, and it was time to put it to use.

"That's close enough!" His words, spoken with enough force to make a drill instructor envious, echoed throughout the room.

She came to a stop. _Good_, he thought, _let her see that I will not be intimidated by her._

"We'll talk at this distance," he said, stiffening his back. "I don't want you getting near me. Who knows where you've been?"

Anger flashed across Atris' face. _Excellent. First blow has struck true._

To her credit, she quickly calmed herself. "I did not expect to see you after the day of your sentencing. And now, ten years later, you have returned." Taking note of his malnourished appearance, she then tried to deliver a barb of her own. "You look _terrible._"

"Well, you look like an overgrown Kowakian monkey-lizard, so I guess looks don't count for much. What's this all about, then?"

"_I_ am the one asking the questions here," she answered coldly. "Answer me: why have you come here?"

Kiven crossed his arms. "I'm here because some cun..._temptible_ woman stole my ship."

"Have you now? Given your obvious hatred of myself and the Jedi, I find it difficult to believe that you would have come all this way simply to retrieve your vessel. Perhaps you have come to face the judgement of the Council, as you did ten years ago? Perhaps you are finally willing to see that we were right in our decision to cast you out?"

He waved his hand in dismissal. "I'm not here to argue that with you, Atris. You may disagree with my actions, but trying to explain them to you would be like trying to explain the sublimities of love to a frigid old maid."

"I wonder...do you recall the reasons the Council had for exiling you? You were so broken by the monstrosity of your deeds that you could not speak one word in your defence. For that matter, do you remember anything at all of the Jedi way, or have you cast it aside along with all the rest of our teachings? Can you even recite the Jedi Code?"

_You left yourself wide open, idiot!_ "Of course I remember the Jedi Code!" Kiven looked upwards in mock contemplation. "Hmm, how does it go again? Ah yes, something like this:

_ There is no emotion, there are peas_

_ There is no ignorance, there is porridge_

_ There is no passion, there is sugar pie_

_ There is no chaos, there is baloney_

_ There is no death, there is the sauce_."

Atris furrowed her brown in irritation. Obviously, she had not found his remark amusing.

Kiven followed it up with a mocking shrug. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I bugger it up? You'll have to excuse me; I always get this way when I'm hungry. Speaking of which, you wouldn't happen to have a bite to eat around here, would you? Some Alderaanian sweet peas would really hit the spot right about now."

Her look could have burned a hole through solid durasteel. "_You..._"

"So no peas, then? That's a shame. You really should try them some time and...give peas a chance."

"I see you have not changed," she said with barely-restrained fury. "You are still the same..._scoundrel..._you were a decade ago."

He laughed. "'Scoundrel'? After ten years, _that's_ the best insult you've come up with? I've been called worse things by better people."

Kiven was disappointed. _Merciful fate! Is she really that bad, or am I just that good? I've landed blow after blow, and all she's managed is some feeble poke!_

Atris, realising that she was being driven back, came at him with a forceful swing. "From the very beginning you hated the Jedi. You believed we had stolen your destiny from you, for you could not imagine using your gifts for anything but your own selfish ends. And then you thought up this whole wretched plan of yours. You would head off to war in defiance of the Council, undermining our influence with the galaxy by making us look weak and indecisive. You wanted nothing more than to cast off your robes and play hero, to slake your thirst for war and battle. Yet it was not enough just to ruin yourself! You led others to defy the Council, filling their heads with absurd notions of glory and conquest. They believed you would lead them to victory, but look where you led them: right into their graves! And in one final, immeasurable injustice, you alone survived the atrocity of Malachor, despite deserving nothing less than death for your actions. I would have thought that in the years you have spent walking the path of the exile that you might have reflected upon your deeds and sought repentance, yet all you have to offer are insults and mockery. You have fallen far, and learned nothing for it. The only mistake the Jedi made was not casting you out when the first seeds of iconoclasm took root within you."

_You have been saving that little speech up for a long time, haven't you, Atris? But alas, it was far too predictable. _"I'm sure we could argue this matter all day, couldn't we, Atris? There's nothing you love more than the sound of your own voice. But the fact remains that, had we not done what we had done, the Mandalorians would have conquered the Republic."

"They might have had a physical victory, but a true victory would lie-"

"In defeat? In surrender?"

"Do not twist my words!" she snapped. "A physical victory is not the only victory... or the only loss."

_Grife, you are pathetic! Is that truly the best you can do? _"That is fine-sounding rhetoric, but if it weren't for our 'defiance' of the Council, we'd be hearing it in Mando'a right now. And I am truly certain that the people whose worlds had been ravaged could take great comfort in making obeisance before you as stand firmly ensconced on your 'moral high ground'. There is a lesson to be learned here, Atris, but I don't quite think it is the one that you intend."

She was well and truly furious by this point, but as her anger grew, so did Kiven's feelings of calmness and serenity. He was winning, and she knew it. "You do not know-"

"Oh _please_. Anyone who stepped outside the Jedi Archives and into the real world would know the truth of my words. There's reality, and then there is you, and never the twain shall meet. You are not simply wrong, Atris, oh no. You are _fractally_ wrong. You are wrong at every conceivable level of resolution. Close examination any part of your world view reveals beliefs that are every bit as wrong as your _entire_ world view. You and the Jedi have built a whole set of myths regarding your moral righteousness, but as you have proven time and time again, myths do not yield to facts."

"How dare you! The Mandalorian Wars should have been your grave, and Malachor V is where you should have _died!_" Atris looked as though she were mere seconds away from attacking him, and Kiven dearly hoped she would. That she would be unable to answer his words with anything but physical violence would be his ultimate victory over her.

He shook his head in mock disapproval. "_Tsk tsk,_ look at you getting all worked up. Anger leads to the dark side, don't you know, and you are positively _seething!_ You see, I know one essential truth about you, Atris, and that is that you are trash_._ A piece of vile, loathsome, slimy, hypocritical _trash_ whose promotion to the rank of Master occurred not in the council chamber, but the bedchamber." Her rage at his words had left her speechless, which only encouraged him to continue tearing her down. "Did you think I had _forgotten_ what you did that night, what you tried to do to me? And that's what this is all about, isn't it, Atris? You don't hate me because I went to war. No, you wanted desperately to fight by my side, but you were too scared to defy the Council. You don't even hate me because I led thirty Jedi to their deaths! No, you hate me because I wouldn't _frak_ you! I can readily admit that I was a terrible Jedi, but just remember that when you point the finger at someone, you've got three fingers pointing right back at you. So listen to me, you despicable little slattern, you don't get to accuse me of failing as a Jedi whilst _marinating in your own filth!_"

And Atris just stood there, utterly stunned. It took her a full three seconds just to regain her ability to speak. Her next attack came from an entirely different angle. "You dare to speak to me of facts? There is only one fact that anyone needs to know about you: that you destroy everything you touch. Because of you, the Peragus Mining Facility lies in ruins, and without it Citadel Station will not have sufficient fuel to maintain its orbit. The restoration project will fail, and the Republic will not finance another. The death you have brought to Telos will echo across all the worlds ravaged by the Sith."

_Yet another clumsy blow, one made out of ignorance._ "Once more, you are wrong. Blame the destruction of Peragus on the Sith and the Exchange. The Sith want the Jedi dead, while the Exchange wants them alive. They're the ones who sent the HK droids right to your doorstep, though I can't imagine that the Sith will be far behind. I wonder who will get you first?"

Atris anger subsided for a moment. "Peragus? What would they want there?"

"To pick up cakes and wine for their grandmothers, of course. They were there for _me,_ you fool!"

She gave a disgusted snort. "If you were the best target they could find, then the dark side must have blinded them indeed. Should the Sith dare to attack me here...whatever forces they can bring to bear...they will face a true Jedi, and they will fall."

"One pompous Jedi Historian versus the entirety of the Sith? Good luck with that."

It was a weak jab, but it was enough to deflate her completely. "So," she said, turning away, "it would seem our enemies are even nearer than I suspected. Knowing this, are we to stand here all day hurling insults at each other, or are you willing to listen to what I propose?"

Now that the discussion have shifted away from the Mandalorian Wars, Kiven allowed himself to relax slightly, although he kept up his guard. "And what, exactly, do you propose?"

Suddenly, her tone changed. There was no more bitterness in her voice, just a sort of pleading that he wasn't sure was an act or not. "The are other Jedi Masters in the galaxy who might help us against the Sith threat. Six of them, to be precise. Master Dorak, on Taris, Master Vrook, on Dantooine, Master Zez-Kai Ell, on Nar Shaddaa, Master Kavar, on Onderon, Master Vash, on Korriban, and lastly, Master Devros, on Tatooine."

Kiven frowned. "Master Devros? Irenaceus' master? He's dead! Chopped to pieces, if I recall correctly."

"Master Devros was a Trandoshan, and thus capable of regenerating lost limbs."

"Then why were we all told he was dead?"

"Because as difficult as it may be for you to understand, there are some people who come to regret their actions. Master Devros believed he was responsible for Irenaceus' fall to the dark side, and his shame was so great that he chose self-imposed exile. It was his wish that the Jedi should believe him to be dead, so that none would seek him out."

Atris took a step towards him, and Kiven instinctively stepped back. "And I suppose you want me to find these Jedi for you?"

"Yes. Take your ship, and seek them out. Instruct them to gather on Dantooine, in the ruins of the academy. From there we can call a council and determine what is to be done." She left the final words unspoken: _a council that will most definitely _not_ be including you._

"Interesting...you hold such a low opinion of me, and yet ask me to perform this seemingly-vital task for you? Why not simply find these Jedi yourself? Or get your Echani minions to do it for you?"

"They are my Handmaidens, not 'minions', as you so eloquently put it. But to answer your question, despite your many moral failings, I do not doubt your skills or your strength in the Force." The next words came slowly, and Kiven could see her struggling mightily just to utter them. "I...I do not believe there is anyone else...capable...of undertaking this mission."

Something stirred inside him, something that told him he ought go along with this. Yet his agreement was hardly forthcoming. "I was your pawn once before, Atris. What makes you think I want to be your pawn now?"

"Because you are not doing this for me. You are doing this because you understand that the Jedi are all that stands between the Republic and ruin. You are doing this because somewhere inside you there is a spark of conscience telling that this is what _must_ be done. It was what compelled you return to face judgement for your actions at Malachor, and it was what shall compel you to seek out these Jedi." Atris could see him turning the question over in his mind, and it gave her the confidence to take another step towards him. "A choice now lies before you. If you wish, you may take your ship and go wherever you want; I will not stop you. Or...you can choose to do what you know is right."

At last he gave in, wanting nothing more than to get out of this terrible place. "How am I to find these Jedi if all is known is what planet they reside on? A planet is a very large place to search, in case you've forgotten."

"That, I leave up to you. I did not say this task would be easy."

"So you say...which is, I guess, why you are incapable of carrying it out yourself. But know this, Atris: you say I am not doing this for you, and so I am going to hold you to your words. The Jedi Council hated you almost as much as I do, and something tells me that their opinions haven't changed. So if they decide you're unworthy of being part of the Council, so don't start screaming 'betrayal' if I decide to stand with them."

Atris wasn't about to let him go without trying to project authority. "Does that I mean I have your agreement?"

"I make you no promises."

"I suppose that is all I can expect from you. There is one more thing before you depart, Kiven."

"And what's that?" _Here it comes...she's defeated and she knows it, but she'll make one final, desperate stab at me..._

She reached inside her robes and withdrew a lightsaber..._his_ lightsaber, and just to make her point abundantly clear, she ignited it and slowly waved it in front of her. "This once belonged to you. It does not any longer."

Kiven refused to baited. "You've actually hung on to that thing all these years? I don't know whether that's disturbing or just pathetic."

"I have always kept it, as a reminder of what can happen when your passions dictate your actions," Atris continued. "I have kept it, so I would never forget your arrogance or your insult to the Order."

"No, you kept it because you are simply incapable of letting things go. I have no doubt that when you are old and wizened you will be still be clutching that thing in your shrivelled hands, cursing my name all the while. You can keep my lightsaber, Atris; I would not want to touch it now that it's been in your filthy hands." Even now, as their meeting drew to a close, Kiven could not resist the urge to mess with her a little more. "I'm...uh...just a bit worried, though. You haven't kept that lightsaber on your person all this time, have you?"

"Why do you ask?" she said suspiciously.

Kiven began turning away. "Oh, nothing...no reason at all..."

Atris was all too willing to swallow the bait. "What is it? Tell me!"

"Let me ask you this: how do you feel about slowly succumbing to radiation poisoning due to a faulty power cell?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Get out."

* * *

><p><em>The worst part of this day is over.<em> That was what Kiven kept telling himself as made his way across the walkway. And he was truly certain he had utterly crushed Atris in that verbal scrap of theirs, and she would surely spend the next few days fuming about it.

All that remained was getting away from here. There was no question now that the dark side presence he had sensed from orbit dwelt within this grim and dreary place, though its exact nature eluded him. He might have asked Atris about it, but she would have either lied or simply denied its existence. The woman was clearly delusional, as evidenced by what she had done with the central chamber of the irrigation facility. It had been made into a pathetic caricature of the Jedi High Council chambers on Coruscant, with a number of seats arranged in a circle around a central obelisk.

_If she thinks this will be the seat of her new Jedi Order, __then she's got another thing coming, she does!_

Before he could go further, he was stopped by the Echani Handmaidens, who were waiting just beyond the entrance to the "council" chambers. Only five of them were present, however, with no sign of the sixth.

He had no intention of wasting his time with these creepy women. "If you're here to escort me out, you needn't bother. I cannot leave this place fast enough."

"We are here to offer you an..._apology..._Exile," said one, in a voice so unbelievably smug that no one would think for a second that she was at all apologetic.

"For what?"

"When you arrived here, you were met by the last of the Handmaidens. She is the weakest among us and the least skilled. "

"And the most easily distracted from her training."

"And the most dishonourable."

"And the most foolish."

"And the least attractive."

"So we apologise for inflicting her presence on you. Even one as lowly as you should not have to put up with her."

_What sort of madhouse have I wandered into?_ "Uh...thank you for providing me with this utterly useless bit of information. Now, would you please show me to where my companions are being held? I am eager to be elsewhere."

"As you wish. Come with us, then."

* * *

><p>"Are you all right, mistress?"<p>

Brianna had expected Atris to be angry in the wake of her meeting with the Exile, but once again the universe insisted on defying her expectations. Instead of being consumed with anger, her mistress looked as though she were about to burst into tears.

"Seeing the Exile again has stirred up feelings...best left forgotten." Atris' hands were trembling, and Brianna feared that she would start openly weeping. Should she try to offer her mistress some words of comfort? But what could she possibly say? There was a raging torrent of emotion bubbling just beneath her surface, and she dared not step into those waters.

_She cared for him once,_ Brianna thought. She must have cared for him deeply for him to affect her so strongly, even ten years later. "I apologise, mistress...if there is anything-"

A flicker of rage burned in her eyes. "I do not need your pity! If you had been there, when he stood before the Council..." Atris lowered her head. "Let us speak no more of this. The Exile has agreed to search for the remaining Jedi Masters. You know what you must do."

"I will not fail you, mistress."

Brianna turned and walked away, struggling to quell her mounting dread. She would leave this place behind, along with the cruelty and torment of her sisters, but would travelling with the Exile prove to be any better?

There was no use in dwelling on such matters, she told herself. Brianna hurried to her dormitory, gathered the few things she possessed, and then started towards the hangar. But as she walked through the central chamber, she caught sight of her sisters leading Kiven towards the sparring room.

_He is not going to fight them, is he?_ If she could not best them in combat, then what hope did one so weak and frail as the Exile have? But regardless of how well he fought, it would reveal something about him, far more than whatever words he spoke. Considering it part of her mission to learn as much about him she could, Brianna silently followed her sisters.

* * *

><p>To Kiven's chagrin, the Echani had not brought him to wherever his companions were being held. Instead, they had taken him to some sort of training area with a large mat covering the floor. It reminded of him the sparring chamber back on Dantooine, where Jedi would practice the arts of combat. This was not exactly a pleasant memory, as Kiven's attempts to learn how to fight had been roundly embarrassing for both himself and his instructor.<p>

"Before you leave," said one of the Echani, "we wish to test ourselves against you."

Behind him, the "last of the Handmaidens" quietly slipped into the room, then stood by the far wall. "You mean you want to fight me?" he asked, confused. "If you feel the need to 'test yourselves' against a man with a bad back and a heart condition, you must not be very good." He still had plenty of verbal ammunition left over from his fight with Atris, and he was more than willing to deploy it against these arrogant women.

They bristled at his insult. "You could not hope to prevail in battle against any of us, even if we were deaf, blind, and with our arms tied behind our backs! No, what we desire is a demonstration of your Force abilities. Atris has told us much of your capabilities."

"Did she also say that the Force is not something to be used for the amusement of others?"

"This is not for our 'amusement', Exile. We are Atris' Handmaidens. The Jedi have long since lacked anyone to judge their actions...and provide support should their power corrupt them. We are this strength. To that end we have trained diligently to resist the Force in all the ways in which it may be used against us. But in our isolation we have lacked for the opportunity to test our abilities...until now."

_Handmaidens...what a ridiculous term! It is just like Atris to act as though she were royalty._ "So what is it you want me to do?"

"Simple: you will attempt to use the Force against the five of us, and we shall strive to our utmost to resist."

_What a beautifully terrible idea!_ "Don't you mean the six of you? Or are you unable to count higher than five?" he teased, glancing over at the lone Handmaiden standing by the wall.

His remarks earned him hateful stares all around. "Do not concern yourself with the last of the Handmaidens! Her presence would merely diminish our technique."

"As we have told you, she is the weakest among us," another added. "Her worthlessness – and her dubious lineage – have brought her such shame that she cannot even utter her name. Should you wish to address her, only the following words are acceptable." She then spoke what Kiven could only assume were various Echani vulgarities.

The torrent of insults continued unabated. "I would not even speak with her, if I were you," said another of the Handmaidens. "Do not even _look_ at her! Were Atris to permit it, we would have a bag placed over her head at all times to spare us the sight of her face."

And the poor woman just stood there by the wall, taking all this abuse with an icy countenance. "Nice, nice," said Kiven. "Let me guess – you enjoyed pulling the wings off insects as children, didn't you? I just have one question: what is it, exactly, that you _do_ here?"

"We have just explained our purpose, Exile. We stand watch against-"

"No, I mean what do you do on a day-to-day basis? Given the secretive nature of this facility, and the rather inhospitable climate outside, I imagine you are not free to leave this place. But there doesn't to be all that much to do around here."

"That is not imp-"

He cut her off. "You see, I've only spent a few minutes with you, and I've already figured out what your problem is. And that is that your lives are completely and utterly _meaningless_. Every waking moment you are forced to grapple with the fact that each day is exactly the same as the last, each one bringing you one step closer to the cold embrace of the grave. As Echani, you long for a battle in which you might prove yourself, a chance to gain honour and prestige, but day after day no battle appears forthcoming. Thus you live with a feeling of being a haunted...haunted by the knowledge by that one day you will grow old without ever having faced a worthy opponent. Your strength will leave you, without ever being tested. And this realisation feeds a terrible rage that squirms inside you like a worm, a rage that can only find release by taking it out on the so-called 'last of the Handmaidens'. You demean her to avoid the inevitable realisation that your lives are empty and hollow, and that you shall go to your graves unwept and unmourned, having accomplished absolutely bugger-all in your short span of time in this universe."

As with Atris just minutes before, the Handmaidens stared at him in stunned silence.

"So how did I do? Was I pretty much on target?"

"We will not stand here and be insulted!" one said at last.

"You just _were_. But since I'm in a bit of a hurry, I guess I can indulge your desire. You want to see the Force? Here it is!"

Kiven closed his eyes and summoned a wave of Force energy. Despite his earlier bravado, he had no intention of seriously harming Atris' Handmaidens. He would try to throw them aside, they would either stand or fall, and then he could finally be on his way.

The Force, however, had other ideas.

Instead of merely pushing them back, it was as though a blast wave tore through the sparring chamber, tossing the hapless Handmaidens about as if they were ragdolls. When Kiven opened his eyes, he saw them scattered about the room, groaning in pain and struggling to get back to their feet.

He stepped back in horror, regretting that he had allowed his desire to see these Handmaidens humbled to override his better judgement. "Oh dear, I...I'm terribly sorry; I didn't mean for it come out quite so strongly. No one's too badly hurt, I hope?"

At last, the "last of the Handmaidens" spoke up. "You have hurt nothing but their pride, Exile. Come, let us put an end to this foolishness. I will take you to your companions."

* * *

><p>When Kiven reached the holding area, however, he discovered that all was not well. Atton lay unconscious in his cell, and when the last of the Handmaidens deactivated the force cages his body slumped to the floor.<p>

He looked at Kreia. "What happened to him?"

"He is merely sleeping. I suspect our earlier battle has fatigued him greatly."

Bao-Dur, on the other hand, was wide awake, though judging from his dazed expression he had only awoken shortly ago. "You all right?" Kiven asked. "You took a nasty blow to the head."

"I...I think I shall be fine. How...how did your reunion with Atris go?"

He looked back to see if the Handmaiden was still around. Seeing that she wasn't, he told him, "Let's just say that my words burned her so badly she'll need a few hours in a kolto tank to recover."

T3 sat in the corner, although he had been deactivated. Atris' servants hadn't wanted the droid getting into trouble, it seemed, which was probably a sensible precaution.

"So, did you find what you came for?" Kreia asked.

Kiven began the process of reactivating the droid. "It was not what I came here for, but I believe we have found a goal to work towards." T3 came back to life, emitting a loud squeal. "Atris wants me to track down six Jedi Masters that are currently in hiding throughout the galaxy. She feels it is the only way of stopping the Sith."

"And here she builds an academy in the semblance of the Jedi Temple, yet one devoid of students. You have sensed the dark presence here, and Atris surrounds herself with those who cannot feel the Force. Tell me, does she wish these Jedi to be gathered here, on Telos?"

Kiven shook his head. "No, she wants them to go to Dantooine."

"She does not want them to sense whatever it is she has concealed here. What are you hiding, Atris...?"

Atton awoke with a groan, and when he caught sight of Kiven he jumped back in fright. He bore a terrible pallor – not something one would expect from a man who had simply fallen asleep.

The mere thought of sleep made Kiven feel extremely tired of all a sudden. He grabbed his rifle resting against the nearby wall. "All right, I think I speak for everyone when I say: let's get the hell out of here!"

* * *

><p>The <em>Fall From Grace <em>sped away from Telos at maximum speed, which wasn't quite fast enough for Kiven. Still, the knowledge that every second took him further and further from Atris was a great comfort.

Everyone had gathered in the main hold of the ship, where he had activated the holoprojector and brought up a map of the galaxy. "Now that we're off of that rock, I say we burn sky until we see lines," Atton declared, who had still not lost his pale, pallid look. "I don't care where we're going, _anywhere_ has got to be better than where we just were!"

"We're looking for six Jedi Masters on six worlds," Kiven explained. He began highlighting the planets on the map. "Taris, Tatooine, Nar Shaddaa, Onderon, Korriban, and Dantooine."

"I vote for going to Nar Shaddaa first," said Atton. "I'm dying to hit a good cantina or two. Or twenty."

"The thought of visiting that hellhole of a moon makes my stomach turn," Kiven muttered. "Korriban is closest to our position, but I don't think I'm quite ready to go there yet. Taris lies along the Hydian Way, and I think it would be the best place to start."

"Oh, a bombed-out, radioactive wasteland. That's _so_ much better!"

He ignored Atton's protests, and addressed his comrades in turn. "Well talk more of this tomorrow, but Kreia, as I'm unable to sense Force users myself, I'll need you to help me find these Jedi on whatever planets they're on. Bao-Dur, I want you to give the ship a thorough look-over – make sure Atris hasn't placed any bugs or tracking devices. T3, do a sweep of the ship's computers, make sure nothing has been tampered with." Finally he turned the last of the Handmaidens, who had appeared next to him all of a sudden. "And you...you're not supposed to be here..."

Perhaps it was weariness, or simply the stress of the day's events, but Atton utterly lost it when he saw the white-clad woman amongst them. "What the _frak_ are you doing on our ship?"

Atton's gaze met the Handmaiden's, and Kiven could almost hear their mutual loathing snap into existence at that very moment. But she ignored him and looked to Kiven. "I have come to join you," she said, her voice calm and even. "I can help you against this threat." There was a striking earnestness to her tone, as if she had no idea what she was getting herself into.

Before Kiven could speak a word, Atton launched into a tirade. "Listen, Snow White, we don't need your help, or your sisters'!"

If he didn't do something to defuse this situation, Kiven figured, then these two were going to come to blows, and Atton would likely be the loser in that confrontation. "I am the only one here," said the Handmaiden, circling around the holoprojector. "Atris believes you will need my help."

"Or you're here to spy on us! I'll bet you're the one who stole the ship, weren't you? You're some kind of...sneaky...ship-thief!"

Kiven laid his hands down on the railing surrounding the holoprojector. "Enough, Atton!" He glanced over at the Handmaiden. "I will take whatever help I can get. In the meantime, we've all had a rough day, so I suggest we get some rest."

Kreia, Bao-Dur, and T3 departed in silence, leaving Atton and the Handmaiden at each other's throats and Kiven hoping he could prevent a brawl from breaking out. "I'm going to be in the cockpit," Atton said. "You know, where the cool people hang out. Why don't you put your new friend in the cargo hold, Kiven? See how she likes getting locked up."

This woman was Atris' servant, and every fibre of his being was telling him that ought to despise her. But seeing the way her sisters had treated her, he had no desire to demean her any further. "Look, don't listen to him," he said, turning to face her. "There are plenty of guest quarters on this ship. Take whichever one you want."

"I do not need such comforts," she answered haughtily, before her voice suddenly softened. "But...thank you for your kindness." The Handmaiden left for the cargo hold, casting one final, hateful look at Atton.

And the man wasn't finished complaining. "Please don't tell me you're actually going to let that little _schutta_ come with us. I say we dump her on the first planet we come to and let her find her way back to her mistress."

His patience was rapidly reaching its end. "Why so petty, Atton? I don't like her being here, either, but as I said, we need all the help we can get."

"_She stole the ship!_"

"You don't know that. And even if she did, it was hardly her decision."

Atton threw up his hands in exasperation. "I can't believe you're defending her! I'll bet the only reason you want her on-board is because she's got a great rack."

Kiven fought to restrain himself from giving him a good smack. "_What?_ No, just...let's just drop this for now."

"Fine, but you're making a big mistake."

* * *

><p>The first thing Kiven did upon returning to his quarters was fill the bathtub with hot water and spend the next fifteen minutes scrubbing every part of his body. He felt dirty after being in Atris' presence and he wanted nothing more to wipe away every bit of her filth. Once he was finished, he returned to the bedroom and reflected on just how much worse things he had gotten. Yes, he had purpose now, but that purpose would involve going back to Nar Shaddaa – the one world he had sworn never to return to – and the other worlds on his journey were hardly pleasant places, either.<p>

And then there was the matter of the Handmaiden. It was true that he needed all the help he could find, but that did mean accepting aid from the servant of the one he hated most? Atris despised him, and it was no great leap in logic to assume that her followers hated him with equal fervour.

"_Her worthlessness – and her dubious lineage – have brought her such shame that she cannot even utter her name._" That was how one of her sisters had described her, which would explain the subtle differences in her appearance. It meant she was likely a child born out of wedlock, a grave dishonour amongst the Echani people.

It was a little known fact that Wookiees possessed a set of retractable claws which they used in climbing and as tools. To use them as weapons was to become like the beasts, wild and feral, and this was considered the greatest imaginable shame that one could suffer. A Wookiee so dishonoured was called a "madclaw" and shunned by has kin and community, unworthy of even having his name uttered aloud. It would seem a similar fate had befallen the Handmaiden.

Upon further reflection, Kiven realised that it was also a fate that had befallen _him_.

Whatever the source of her shame, he knew better than to bring it up with her, knowing how prickly Echani could be in matters of honour. But if he did not bring it up, then Atton surely would, and then the smuggler would find himself in the infirmary with a half-dozen cracked ribs or so.

Kiven looked to the golden-haired woman in the painting above the bed. "What have I done? It is bad enough that I am to do Atris' bidding, but must I accept one of her minions aboard my ship?"

_You know nothing about her. You have barely even spoken with her._

"What would be the use in talking with her? I don't need to hear all the ways in which I am a terrible person."

_You have seen the cruelty she has been subjected to. You have already determined that she is an outcast among her people. Can you not see the shared thread between you?_

"And now I am talking to a painting. Force help me, I really am crazy."


	10. Fallout

Chapter 10 – Fallout

* * *

><p><em>I wonder how many problems in this galaxy could have been avoided if the people involved had simply stayed in bed.<em>

When Kiven awoke, he dared not move. Having been involved in two separate shuttle crashes the day prior, he feared that his body would be so sore that even the slightest movement would bring him tremendous agony.

He tried moving his arms and legs a little. _No pain...so far so good. Now let's try sitting up..._

To his surprise, he managed to accomplish this feat with relatively little discomfort. _I think my body's trying to lull me into a false sense of security. I'll go to stand up and a half-second later I'll be screaming in agony._

Slowly, Kiven rose to his feet, waiting for the inevitable spasm of pain to shoot through his back. Yet it was not forthcoming, and for one brief instant he thought he was about to reach standing position with a minimum of discomfort.

_Wait, there it is! Lying in me wait for me, of course. Bloody hell, this is going to hurt, isn't it?_

When the pain came, it struck with the force of a legion. If there was one small comfort, it was that no one was here to see him like this.

And just to brighten up his day, they were going to a planet that had been reduced to a radioactive wasteland by the Sith. Normally, when confronted with a potentially unpleasant situation, Kiven had always reassured himself that no matter how bad it was, it could never possibly be as bad as being in Atris' presence. But even that consolation had been taken from him, because he now counted one of Atris' servants amongst his companions.

_If she hates you as much as her 'mistress' does, then she'll likely avoid speaking with you,_ he told himself. _Just avoid getting stuck with her alone for any length of time, or you'll be wanting to gnaw your own leg off just to escape._

When Kiven went to get dressed, he found that his battered datapad had been stashed in one of the drawers, which had not been where he had last left it. Not only that, someone had replaced the discharged power cell. _So Atris has been going through my things, _he thought,_ which means she's read my journal entries from Hoth. _Having never intended those entries to be read by anyone, he deleted them from the datapad and tossed it aside in disgust.

Evidently Atris had taken no interest in the pair of blue crystals he'd found on Hoth. Curious as to whether they would have any useful purpose besides being made into pretty-looking jewellery, Kiven decided to have a closer look at them.

In the very rear of the _Fall From Grace_ he found a moderately-sized garage holding, among other things, a two-seater Kuat Vehicles landspeeder. There was a work bench nearby, and after summoning T3, began examining the crystals with a large loupe and a hand-held scanner.

"I know what you're thinking, T3, and the answer is no."

T3 responded that he had no idea what he was talking about, phrasing his answer in the droid's usual abrasive manner.

"You want me to use one of them in a lightsaber, don't you? Well that's not going to happen, T3. I've already lost enough fingertips, thank you very much. No, I'm perfectly content never to put on my hand on a lightsaber as long as I live. Now, the question is, what shall we call these crystals?"

With a few low beeps, T3 offered his suggestion.

"'Permafrost crystals'? 'Permafrost' refers to dirt. I guess I could call them 'frostbite crystals' but that's not terribly original." He turned around and held one of the crystals up to the light and looked at it closely through the loupe. "The internal structure is absolutely exquisite. If the melting point is sufficiently high, I _suppose_ it could be used in constructing a lightsaber. Feels like a bit of a waste though."

T3 did not reply as Kiven continued studying the crystal. Even if it possessed the necessary qualities to be put into a lightsaber, he'd still need a number of other hard-to-find components, and that was assuming that he still remembered how to build one in the first place.

"You're not listening to me, are you T3?"

When the droid once more failed to respond, Kiven lowered the loupe and crystal from his eye, only to find the Handmaiden standing right in front of him. He recoiled with a yelp of right, her sudden appearance taking him completely by surprise.

"Oh, I...I'm sorry," he stammered. "You startled me." _How long was she standing there? _he wondered.

As if to make matters worse, T3 decided that this would be a good time to leave the room, leaving Kiven alone with the Handmaiden. This was precisely the situation he'd been hoping to avoid.

He eyes darted towards the exit, frantically trying to think up some reason to excuse himself. But he couldn't, and now he was trapped.

"Um...is there something you need?"

"What are those...crystals...you are examining?" she asked

_That's a strangely mundane thing for her to ask,_ he thought. _I thought it would be something more along the lines of, "Atris tells me that your pastimes include eating children and burning down orphanages. Is this true?" _He turned around to face the workbench. "These things? They're just something I found on Hoth. I don't really know why I kept them, other than the fact that they look pretty."

"I see," she said. Kiven tried to read her expression, but the Handmaiden's face revealed absolutely nothing. _She didn't look surprised when I mentioned Hoth. That means either Atris told her, or she was the one who read my journal. The latter is definitely the worse of those two possibilities._

The Handmaiden remained standing in a rigid posture, not even moving one centimetre. "There is something I must ask you."

_Oh no, what is she going to question me on? This isn't going to be very pleasant, is it? _

"When you first entered the Telos Academy," she began, "you said you felt a 'disturbance in the Force'. What did you mean by this?"

_Good, something I expected her to ask. _"I'm sure Atris told you already, but I'm incapable of sensing the Force in living things. I could be standing right next to the most powerful Jedi who ever lived and I'd be completely unaware of it. But I _can_ sense the Force in inanimate things, and when I came in to that...academy...of yours, I felt that there was something hidden there, something saturated in dark side energy."

"What do you think it could be?"

"Uh...well, I was hoping you'd be able to tell me that. You know Atris' activities far better than I do."

With her piercing eyes and sharp, angular features, the Handmaiden was unquestionably beautiful. But the cold tone of her voice and her equally icy stare repulsed him, and his mind frantically searched for a way of abbreviating this conversation of theirs. It was only a matter of time before she steered it into more uncomfortable territory.

"My mistress maintains a collection of artefacts in her meditation chamber, but she does not allow us to enter it."

Kiven was about to tell her that this was because Atris obviously had something to hide, but judging from her expression, the Handmaiden had already reached this conclusion. "Whatever she's got her hands on, I could sense it from orbit. I'm not sure I want to find out what it is..."

The Handmaiden, not wanting to dwell on the subject of her mistress' less admirable activities, quickly changed the subject of her interrogation. "Something else concerns me. Your...friend...Atton, when we first confronted him, he adopted an Echani defensive stance. Such techniques are seldom taught to off-worlders. How did he come to have this knowledge?"

Kiven couldn't recall Atton taking any sort "defensive stance," but then again he'd hardly been paying much attention to him. "I wouldn't call him my 'friend'. I've only known him since I woke up on the Peragus Mining Facility a few days ago, and I know very little about him." Standing upright all this time was beginning to make his back ache, so Kiven started walking about the garage, glad to get some breathing room between him and the Handmaiden. "To be honest, I've had a bad feeling about him ever since I met him. There's just something..._wrong..._about the way he acts."

"'Wrong' in what way?"

"That whole 'cocky smuggler' persona of his? It's an act, I'm sure. I suspect he's got a troubled past, and a rather violent one at that. I grew up on Nar Shaddaa, and I've spent years trying to wipe away the filth of that place. But Atton...he's got that same filth on him. He's tried to cleanse himself of it, but every now and then you can still see it if you look hard enough."

She took a step towards him. "If he is a threat, why do you permit his presence on this ship? You cannot trust a man who presents himself as something other than what he is."

"I don't believe he's a threat to us, but you're right – he's not to be trusted too far. Now, if you'll excuse me, I should head up to the cockpit. I imagine we'll be reaching Taris shortly." He started moving towards the exit.

But the Handmaiden wasn't finished with her questions. "Before you go, there is one more thing I would ask you." She spoke in a quiet tone, as if she were afraid of being overheard.

"And what would that be?"

"What is it like to feel the Force?"

The question froze him where he stood. "I...I don't know how to begin to answer that, Handmaiden. It would be like trying to describe colour to someone who had born blind. The best answer I can give you is that it's like discovering another sense that you never knew you had. Imagine you had lived all your life blindfolded, and then that blindfold was suddenly pulled away. For the first time in your life you could see, but since you've never used your eyes before, you can't make sense of anything before you. And that's what Jedi training is all about really – teaching how to understand what you're seeing. But just like some people are near-sighted or colour-blind, some of us are...limited...in our connection to the Force."

Mercifully, Bao-Dur strolled into the garage before the Handmaiden could say another word. "I'm sorry, am I interrupting something?" he said, and Kiven didn't fail to notice the subtle grin on the Iridonian's face.

"Of course not. What do you need?"

"I just wanted to have a look at this landspeeder. I get restless if I don't have something to work on, and I'd rather not risk implementing any of my modifications to the ship."

Kiven laughed. "If I know you, Bao-Dur, you're going to turn this landspeeder into something capable of breaking the sound barrier."

"The sound barrier? Why would I set my sights so low? I'm sure I could get this landspeeder going fast enough to keep up with the setting sun."

"And the funny thing is, I don't even know if you're joking or not! Remember that time you 'modified' Captain Graf's speeder bike?"

"How could I forget? The final product was more was less a speeder bike and more an engine with a speeder bike attached to it."

"If I recall correctly, Bao-Dur, you did that without Captain Graf's permission. He wasn't too happy when he found out what you'd done with the thing."

Bao-Dur shrugged. "And he still choose to go riding on it. It is not my fault that he couldn't handle that much power."

"Crashed right into the base commander's office, he did. You must have got a bawling out for that."

"I think Captain Graf had the worst of it. Though after some of the stunts I pulled, I'm surprised I kept my commission as long as I did. I never really fit into the military way of life. You were fortunate; as a Jedi, you were outside the chain of the command."

"I sure was. You have no idea how much I hated that whole _yes sir, no sir, may I have another sir_ bollocks!"

The Handmaiden, perhaps indignant at being left out of their conversation, finally spoke up. "Bao-Dur? Atris mentioned you."

"Did she now? And what did she say? Nothing bad, I hope."

"She spoke of your work with Telos' shield system. Your work was very impressive; many Echani engineers would envy what you have accomplished."

"And now Czerka's going to undo everything I've worked for," he said bitterly.

"I don't know about that, Bao-Dur," Kiven said. "On Citadel Station I helped the IUA uncover evidence of Czerka's corruption. Maybe it will encourage the Republic to do something about it." The _Fall From Grace_ shuddered slightly. "Looks like we've dropped out of hyperspace. I'm going up to the cockpit; in the meantime, try not to make _too_ many 'modifications' to that landspeeder. We might need it intact later."

* * *

><p>Like most Echani, Brianna knew that if you wanted to learn something about a person's character, then the worst way to go about it was paying attention to what they said and not what they did. "Words are leaves, deeds are fruit" went the old saying, and during her talk with Kiven, the way he'd reacted to her questions was every bit as telling as the answers he'd given her.<p>

It was impossible not to see how uncomfortable he'd been in her presence. She'd seen his eyes looking towards the doorway, seeking a way out. And the way he'd jumped back in fright when first seeing her standing there...what sort of Jedi would respond in that manner? In fact, nothing about Kiven seemed remotely Jedi-like. He appeared anxious and fearful, as if she were about to attack him at any moment.

And then Bao-Dur had appeared, and suddenly he had become far more relaxed. The two men clearly knew each other, likely having fought together in the Mandalorian Wars, and seeing the two of them talking made Brianna feel a bit sorry for herself. Here they were, having a friendly conversation with each other – something she had never experienced in her life. Aside from Atris and her father, everyone she had ever known had looked upon her with contempt, a feeling that likely extended to the Exile and his companions.

Or did it? Despite his nervousness speaking with her, she did not get the impression that he hated her, at least not in the way that Atton did.

She slowly started heading to the ship's forward area, still going over her conversation with Kiven, in particular the dark side energy he had sensed from the Telos Academy. Now more than ever was Brianna curious about those "artefacts" her mistress had brought to her meditation chamber. If they really were imbued with the power of the dark side...

_No, Atris knows what she's doing. It is not my place to question her actions._ It was something Brianna had told herself many times before. And she wanted to believe it. She _had_ to believe it, because if she couldn't trust Atris, then whom could she trust?

_Concentrate on the present,_ Brianna told herself, _and remember the warnings your mistress gave you about the Exile._ On a ship full of strangers, none of whom she trusted, the best thing for her to do would be to keep her mouth shut and not draw attention to herself. Somehow, she knew that wasn't going to be possible.

* * *

><p>"So how's Snow White settling in? Remind me to voice-lock the ship's controls, just in case she decides to steal it again."<p>

Atton's voice was so caustic that it could have melted through the _Fall From Grace's_ hull. Kiven took a seat in the copilot's chair, going through the usual tortuous routine of sitting down, and was rewarded by experiencing what had to the most comfortable bit of furniture he had ever encountered. He wondered if he should send Kuat Drive Yards a message telling them how pleased he was the seats in this particular line of luxury yacht and how much easier they made things for someone with a bad back.

"I still can't believe you're letting her stay on-board," Atton continued. "You kept going on about how much you hated Atris, but when one her flunkies stows away on our ship, you piratically welcome her with open arms! Look, I know that after spending all those years on Hoth you might be feeling kind of lonely, but that's no-"

"Atton, stop. That's not the reason I'm permitting her on this ship, and you know it."

A few seconds of silence passed before Atton spoke again. "So, does she, uh, have a name?"

"I think she'd rather just be called 'Handmaiden'."

He laughed. "This is some Echani thing, right? Like not being able to speak your name until you first wet your blade with your enemy's blood or something like that."

Their conversation came to an abrupt end when the Handmaiden walked into the cockpit and quietly took a seat in the navigator's chair. Atton looked as if his personal space had just been invaded, but to Kiven's relief, he said nothing.

Through the window, he saw the dead world of Taris growing slowly by steadily larger. Kiven had been to Taris a few times in the years following his exile, and he remembered clearly the way the planet had looked from orbit. But what had once been a blue-green orb glittering with lights was now the colour of soot and ash.

His reminiscence was interrupted by a gentle tremor that ran through the ship. Kiven ignored at first, but then it happened again, more strongly this time. Atton appeared unconcerned, so he said nothing. When it occurred for a third time, however, he spoke up.

"What's with all the chop, Atton?"

"Sorry, it's just that this ship's got four engines in the back, and I'm not used to flying a ship with that kind of power."

"I did not have such difficulty when I was in control of this vessel," said the Handmaiden, her voice cold enough to drop the temperature in the cockpit a few degrees.

Atton rolled his eyes. "Well maybe _you_ should be flying us around, then?"

"You know, Atton," Kiven said, "that might not be such a bad idea. She's less likely to lose the ship in a pazaak game, for one thing."

Atton swivelled his seat to face him. "Now _that_ was uncalled for. Sure, I've gambled away a lot of things: my life savings, my speeder bike, my weapons, my clothes – even gambled away my girlfriend once – but I never-"

The Handmaiden was taken aback. "You..._what?_"

"Oh, don't get your panties in a wad, Snow White! I won her back, though she didn't really want to be my girlfriend after that. Women...what can you say?"

Her voice went from merely icy to downright cryogenic. "I would say you are a terrible person."

"Glad I could live down to your expectations. You ever played pazaak, Snow White? If you like to gamble, I tell you I'm your man."

"Gambling is for fools."

"And I know I'm born to lose, but that's the way I like it, baby!"

The Handmaiden blinked. "You enjoy losing? You are a very strange man."

It was only a short while before they drew close enough to Taris for Kiven to see what the Sith attack had wrought upon the world. Grey clouds shrouded the planet like a pall, and past the terminator he could see numerous fires burning on the night side.

Atton gestured towards to the cockpit window. "Look, there's the wreckage of the Republic fleet."

It was nearly impossible to see against the black background of space, but every so often the sun would catch a piece of debris and he would see it shine brilliantly for a half-second or so. And when Kiven looked closely, he saw the burnt-out hulks of what had to be hundreds of cruisers and dreadnoughts, along with countless smaller vessels.

He sat back in his chair. "I suppose there's no point in asking why the Sith bombed Taris. From what I've heard of Darth Irenaceus, he likely did it out of boredom."

"He was looking for some Jedi hiding out there, or so I heard. When he couldn't find her, he just said 'frak it' and carpet bombed the entire planet."

Kreia entered the cockpit with Bao-Dur following close behind, and when Atton saw caught sight of her he immediately shrank into his chair, as if that were going to keep him from being noticed. Kiven had never seen him display such fear of Kreia before. Had she threatened him in some way?

He spun his seat around. "Bao-Dur, can you get any lifeform readings from the surface?"

A few seconds at one of the console, and Bao-Dur had his answer. "The large quantity of radionuclides in the atmosphere is interfering with my scans. I can't get any sort of reading."

Kreia stepped forward, concentrating via the Force. "Beneath the remains...beneath the ashes of nuclear devastation...yes, I sense this Jedi, though he is not alone. Oh Master Dorak, to what depths you have sunk..."

"Can you determine where he's located?"

"Yes...Atton, you will take us..._here..._"

Atton clutched his head in hands. "_Gaaaah, stay out of my head, witch!_"

"Was that _really_ necessary, Kreia?" said Kiven, staring harshly at her. "You could have just told him where to put the ship down! There was no need to invade his mind like that!"

"Given the questionable skill as a pilot he has so far demonstrated, I felt it best that he be given the clearest possible instructions."

The _Fall From Grace_ started to shudder as it entered Taris' upper atmosphere. Kiven tried to catch some glimpse of the planet's surface, but the thick cloud cover made it impossible to see anything.

"I'm picking up a faint power source directly ahead," said Bao-Dur. "But Taris is covered in several kilometres of debris, and these power emanations are coming from somewhere deep underground. If this is where the Jedi is located, reaching him will prove difficult."

"And that's not the worst part," Atton added. "There's no room to land anywhere nearby. Everywhere around is just one big heap of rubble, and I don't even know if it will support the ship's weight."

Kiven slowly rose from his seat. "We can land further away and use that landspeeder to cover the remaining distance. Assuming, that is, we don't die of radiation exposure the moment we set foot outside."

"That is unlikely, Kiven," Bao-Dur said. "The attack happened five years ago. Since radioactivity decays exponentially with the passage of time, the surface should be safe to walk upon. But anyone still living on Taris will face food and water that has been contaminated with longer-lived isotopes."

The ship passed through the cloud base, revealing the full horror of this world's fate. Beneath the dark skies there was only twisted, mangled wreckage and the hollowed-out skeletons of what had once been towering skyscrapers. Some sections of the city had been totally pulverised, while other areas further from the nuclear blasts held structures that were almost recognisable.

"All right, I'm putting us down," Atton said, turning the ship 180 degrees. "Looks like there was some sort of multi-level docking structure down there, and after the bombing all the platforms just pancaked atop one another. Should be sturdy enough to land on, at any rate."

"How close are we from that power source?"

"About twenty five kilometres."

"Shouldn't take us too long to reach it in the landspeeder, then." He then turned to address the rest of his companions. "That thing seats two, so let me ask you this: who wants to come with me on journey across a desolate, radioactive wasteland?"

To his complete lack of surprise, no one uttered so much as a single word.

"All right, so I'll go it alone, then. Anything else I should be worried about, Bao-Dur?"

"Two things. First, you should dress warmly. The planet is experiencing a prolonged nuclear winter; all that ash and dust in the atmosphere keeps much of the sunlight from reaching the surface. Second, Taris was infamous for its rakghoul population – flesh-eating monsters that roamed the lower levels of the city. I can only assume that they survived the Sith attack, and exposure to radioactive fallout likely hasn't improved their disposition."

"I remember hearing about those things; they said that a single scratch from their claws can infect you with a disease that'll eventually transform you into a rakghoul. Still, it could be worse I suppose...I don't know how...I guess the rakghouls could be on fire or something...and they spit bees at you...that are also on fire..."

"And you're going out there alone," Atton remarked. "I swear, it's like you're _trying_ to get yourself killed."

"If you want to come with me, Atton, you're more than welcome."

"No, I'm fine here on the ship. Really."

* * *

><p>Kiven grabbed his rifle and as much ammunition as he could carry before heading down to the <em>Fall From Grace's<em> garage. _Master Dorak...what do I remember about him? _The one thing that stuck in his mind was the man's habit of asking him disturbing questions about Atris, such as what colour of undergarments she wore. It was a trait, he reckoned, that could only have gotten worse over time.

He unlocked the driver's side door of the landspeeder, which opened with a soft hiss. If sitting down was painful, climbing into a vehicle was even worse. It didn't help matters that the cabin was so cramped, necessitating a good deal of agonising bending and twisting just to get seated.

_I wonder if Master Dorak has sensed my arrival here? How will he react to my presence? _He wasn't so naive as to think the Jedi Master would be glad to see him.

_Just remember what Ruslan told you...it can _always_ get worse._

"Kiven?"

He turned around to see the Handmaiden standing in the doorway, carrying a vibroblade with her. "Yes?"

"I am going with you."

His first instinct was to declare that things had, in fact, just gotten worse, but being rational about it, having someone accompany him was probably a good thing. "All right, hop in."

After stowing his rifle in the back accomplishing the rather arduous process himself into the driver's seat, Kiven started up the engines. Typical of luxury vehicles, the sound was so muted that it was nearly inaudible, and combined with the narrow confines of the passenger cabin, it meant he would be spending several uncomfortably close to the Handmaiden while an equally uncomfortable silence hung over them.

_Still, it could be worse...it could be Atris in this thing._

He picked up his communicator. "All right, Bao-Dur, we're ready. Open the garage doors."

"_'We're'?_"

"The Handmaiden decided to come with me."

"_Of course she did._"

_And what's _that_ supposed to be mean?_ he thought.

The doors opened and the loading ramp descended, resulting in a blast of snow flying into the garage. He twisted the throttle control, and with a barely-perceptible increase in pitch from the engines, they sped out of the garage and into the blasted, desolate landscape of Taris.

"Merciful fate..."

Seeing the utter devastation of the planet from the air was nothing compared to the view from the ground. In all directions there was nothing but a sea of rubble and debris, punctuated by a handful of structures that had survived the blast, left as little more than shells of their former glory. In the distance rose the jagged, burnt-out carcasses of what had once been an awe-inspiring skyline, now blackened and shattered. High above, the sun tried in vain to deliver some illumination upon this desolate landscape, but the thick, heavy clouds allowed only a dreary, dismal light to filter down to the surface.

Bao-Dur's voice cracked over the comlink. "_Those power emanations are coming from a position directly west of you.__I'm transmitting the coordinates to your landspeeder._"

A display on the dashboard flickered to life, revealing their destination and the closest route to it. "You said it was located underground. Any idea how we're supposed to get to it if it's under all this rubble?"

"_No, but I'm sure you'll think of something._"

The Handmaiden gazed upon the ruined landscape with a mixture of awe and dismay. "What do you know of this world? What was it like before the Sith brought nuclear death?"

"Taris? They called it the 'Coruscant of the Outer Rim', but don't let that fool you. Once you looked beneath the glittering skyscrapers, it was just Nar Shaddaa in fancier clothes."

"In what way?"

"Since it was located close to the Perlemian Trade Route, Taris served as an entrepôt for goods coming in from the Outer Rim. The planet's culture was dominated by business and trade almost right from the start, and if you ask me, a business culture is one step above a thug culture. Just like Nar Shaddaa, the only question your typical Tarisian ever asked himself was, 'What's in it for me?' Hardly surprising that the whole world ended up so stratified, figuratively and literally."

"What do you mean?"

"The wealthy lived at the highest regions of the city. The lower parts were little more than slums, ruled by swoop gangs and criminals, but the very worst was the Undercity, on the planet's surface. Those who lived there had to eke out an existence in a place devoid of sunlight and prowled by the rakghouls Bao-Dur mentioned. And then new hyperspace routes were discovered that made Taris obsolete as a trading post, and that was really the beginning of the end. The Tarisian civilisation was built upon trade and commerce, and without that there was nothing to hold it together."

"But even then, it did not deserve its fate."

"You're right, of course. All war is madness, but this war...it was something else entirely. Merdinus Deculo, the worst actor in the galaxy, becomes the Dark Lord of the Sith, and then it turns out his master Darth Revan existed only in his imagination! If I didn't know better, I'd say someone was putting me on."

She gave him a puzzled look. "'Never existed'? What are you talking about?"

"That's what Atton told me, at any rate. Why, have you heard something different?"

"Atris believed _you_ were Darth...R...Revan..." She spoke the name with great difficulty, as if it were somehow embarrassing to utter aloud. "She believed your war with the Republic was your means of wreaking vengeance upon the Jedi for casting you out."

That Atris believed him to have taken up the mantle of the Dark Lord was so absurd he almost laughed. "I am hardly surprised. If she stubbed her toe getting out of bed in the morning, I am sure she would blame me for it."

"That is not all she says. She said you fell to the dark side in the Mandalorian Wars when you gave into your lust for battle, and claimed that you have no loyalty to any cause but that of your own selfish, violent impulses."

Kiven kept his voice calm and even. "I see...and when she was telling you all this, was it with fists clenched and veins throbbing? Was the mere mention of my name enough to make her angry?"

The Handmaiden fidgeted in her seat. "My mistress found it...difficult...to control her emotions when discussing you."

He slowed down the landspeeder as he piloted it through a narrow passage between two ruined skyscrapers. "Glad to see she hasn't changed any. I knew a lot of Jedi who had endured Atris' wrath after making the mistake of bringing up the wrong topic or the wrong person. She was spitting hot coals for weeks after that whole 'Children of the Force' incident."

"'Children of the Force'?"

"She never mentioned it to you?"

"No, she did not."

"It was a documentary holovid, made by a man named Jerrod Zias. See, the Jedi keep their training a secret from the rest of the galaxy, and naturally that made people curious about what exactly it entailed. Since Jedi training begins in childhood, a great many parents wanted to know what their children would experience when they gave them over to the Order. So this Jerrod bloke, he somehow managed to convince a young Padawan to carry a hidden holorecorder with him for a year as he went about his training. He then made the footage into a documentary, and the portrait it presented of the Jedi Order was...less than flattering."

"In what way?"

"It made your typical Jedi Academy out to be this dreary, miserable place completely devoid of joy and happiness. When parents saw children as young as five years of age being told that they couldn't see their families ever again, and that it was personal failing to even _want_ to see them again, they weren't exactly happy, to put it mildly. The Jedi claimed that the documentary was grossly inaccurate, and it had been manipulatively edited to present them in the worst possible light. This was true, to some extent, but by then the damage had been done. And when Atris found out about it, she was _furious._ I had never seen a Jedi so angry before, and there was nothing anyone could do to console her. She kept going on and on about how we had been betrayed, how the Padawan who recorded the footage ought to be exiled for his transgression, how our 'sacred traditions' had been violated, and so on. She seemed take any slight against the Order as a slight against herself."

"I...confess...that Atris allows her emotions to colour her words. I do not know if what she speaks truly reflects what is in her heart, or if it is merely a crude reflection."

"And what do you think is 'in her heart'?"

"Without having seen you and Atris fight, I cannot say."

He shot her a puzzled glance. "As much as I may dislike her, I have no desire to fight her."

"You misunderstand me. We Echani do not conflate battle with malicious intent. Rather, it is the purest form of expression. In a fight, words give way to action. All pretence and superficiality is stripped away, leaving only pure heart and discipline."

_So what you're saying is, if I were to beat Atris to a bloody pulp, that would clear things right up? _"Well, I'm afraid you're going to waiting a long time to see such a battle. My injuries prevent me from doing any sort of fighting that you would consider 'expressive'."

"Injuries?"

"During the war, a Mandalorian frag mine sent a piece of metal into my spine. Ever since then, any sort of bending, twisting, or lifting causes me terrible pain. On top of that, I have this heart condition that prevents me from exerting myself too much. As you can probably guess, that means I'm not much of a fighter."

The Handmaiden gave a look of...what was it, exactly? Sympathy? Pity? "It does not matter if you fight well or poorly," she said. "In either case, it will reveal something of yourself to those who know what to look for."

He brought the landspeeder to a gentle stop once they reached their destination. Directly ahead stood the foundation of what Kiven guessed had been one of Taris' many skyscrapers, though its upper levels had been blown away, leaving only the collapsed remains of its lower section.

"Looks like we're here," he said, shutting down the engine. "Bao-Dur said those power emissions were coming from beneath the surface, so there must be a lift somewhere inside that building. I imagine Master Dorak has sensed my arrival, and he's probably not too happy about it."

"Why do you say that?"

He opened the driver's side door and was greeted with a blast of cold air. "Atris wasn't the only member of the Jedi Council who hated me. They all did. I won't bore you with the details, but I had many...philosophical...disagreements with the Council regarding their teachings. As you can probably guess, that didn't make me any friends, and I doubt their opinion has changed since then."

With no small amount of discomfort, he climbed out of the landspeeder and grabbed his rifle from behind the seat. The ground beneath his feet was little more than a vast sea of broken ferrocrete and twisted rebar, interrupted by the occasional gutted remnants of one structure or another.

He looked around the bleak landscape, and tried to imagine the last moments of these people. Those who perished in the blast were the lucky ones. Others had their flesh seared from their bones, their bodies torn apart by the shockwave, or found themselves crushed beneath kilometres of debris, while the survivors could hope for nothing except a prolonged, agonising death from radiation poisoning.

Kiven did not have to imagine, because he felt the echo of this world's death through the Force. Every dying scream, every last moment of terror, they all came to him in a flood of anguish and pain. Just like before, ten years ago at Malachor...

He felt himself falling, but he could not stop it. The force of memory was too great, the pain of knowing too intense. It was as though millions voice were crying out to him, judging him, condemning him, reaching out to draw him into this terrible, suffocating void.

_We are the dead. You are an intruder among us. You have slighted us with your presence; beware our wrath._

A pair of strong arms took hold of him, and he heard the Handmaiden speak his name. Everything was silent again, and there was nothing but the two of them standing atop the rubble.

"There are times when really I wish I was unable to feel the Force," he muttered. "You should consider yourself fortunate to have deafened yourself to it."

"Why? What is it that you feel?"

It was then that he noticed how the mere mention of the Force elicited an immediate change in the Handmaiden's tone. The way she spoke reminded him of someone who had been told by her friends that they knew some great a secret which they would not reveal to her, and now she had finally found someone who was willing to let her in on that secret.

"The Force is inextricably bound to life itself. When there is so much death in one place, it becomes like a wound...a void, a black hole-"

He froze. The similarity was so clear now, and the implication was horrifying

The Handmaiden stared at him. "What? What was it you were going to say?"

"Atton...that's what he is. That's why I've had a bad feeling about him all this time. He's this empty space in the Force, a place where it is completely absent. I've heard about such things before, but they are always places, not people."

Neither spoke, and the only sound was that of the cold wind blowing through the ruins.

"How could he have become like this?" the Handmaiden said at last.

"I have no idea. I don't know if Atton's even aware of his 'condition'. But at any rate, we've got more important things to focus on."

They made their way across the rubble towards the decrepit structure. Kiven grabbed his comlink. "We're at the coordinates you've gave us, Bao-Dur. I'm not sure how far this comlink can transmit from beneath the surface, so you might not be hearing from us for a while."

"_Understood. According to my scans, there appears to be a large underground vault beneath your __position. It is not marked on any map of the planet's ecumenopolis, nor can I find any record of its construction._"

The building ahead looked to be a transportation hub of some kind, as evidenced by the rows of shuttles arrayed before them. Though they were all covered in a thick layer of ferrocrete dust, Kiven could still make out the logo of the Kiske Repulsorcraft company.

"This company's been out of business for centuries," he remarked. "And everything here looks like it hasn't been used in ages. This place must have been abandoned long before the attack."

The Handmaiden looked puzzled. "Why would they simply leave all this here?"

"It happens with these planet-wide cities. They run out of room to expand outwards, so they start expanding upwards. Eventually, the lower levels are forgotten about."

Kiven heard a rustling behind him, and when he turned around he caught a glimpse of something moving between the shuttles. He raised his rifle and looked through the rangefinder, but saw nothing.

"Let's keep moving," he whispered.

They made their way further into the structure, looking for any sort of lift or conveyance that would take them beneath the surface.

Once more there was noise from somewhere in the distance, like that of a claw scraping against a rough surface. "It's following us, whatever it is," the Handmaiden said.

"If it's one of the rakghouls, then there's likely more than one lurking about," he answered quietly. "It's best that we avoid making too much noise and-"

Kiven had no chance to finish, as the ground beneath his feet abruptly gave way. It turned out there was another level about two metres below them, and he was now falling towards hard ferrocrete at a rate of speed that could guarantee nothing but the most exquisite suffering.

He landed on his back, and the delay between feeling the impact and feeling the pain was both far too long and far too brief. This was going to hurt, he knew. It was going to hurt far worse than crashing on Telos. It was going to hurt far worse than getting hit by that frag mine in the war. It was going to hurt far worse than that time he'd crashed a speeder bike after drinking a little too much Juma Juice. And just to top it all off, the Handmaiden was going to bear witness to every second of his humiliation.

When the pain came, it was unspeakable, like a proton torpedo going off in his spine. It was so intense, so concentrated, that it transcended mere physical sensation. He clutched at a piece of broken ferrocrete near his hand and bit down on his lip to keep himself from wailing like a child, yet a sharp cry escaped his lips despite his efforts.

The next thing he knew, the Handmaiden leapt down from above, grabbed his hand, and pulled him to his feet. He breathed in heavy, panting gasps, his whole body shaking as he struggled to remain standing. He avoided looking at the Handmaiden, unwilling to see the look of contempt that she surely bore on her face.

When the pain subsided to a dull ache, Kiven glanced around and saw that some good had come of his misfortune, at least. There was a lift not twenty metres away from them, one that looked markedly newer than the rest of the structure. The words _KEEP OUT_ had been hastily scribbled on the wall above, and to add extra emphasis, several skulls were drawn around the entrance.

"Are you hurt?" the Handmaiden asked. He noticed that she was still clutching his hand tightly – a sensation, he had to admit, that was not _entirely_ unpleasant.

"I don't think I broke anything," he mumbled, pulling his hand away from her.

_If that was supposed to make you sound tough,_ _you failed,_ Kiven thought. _She's an Echani warrior. She's probably been training in the martial arts since she first __learned how to walk. And then there's you, __who can barely fight his way out of bed in the morning..._

They stepped into the lift carriage, a rickety, metal contraption that looked like it could barely support the weight of two people. Through the floor grating, he could see nothing except a deep, black abyss. From this darkness emerged a strange, rather unpleasant odour that Kiven could not identify. It smelled like a combination of damp moss and a trash compactor.

"Ugh, what a stench! Well, down we go...no one ever said this mission was going to be glamorous." He pushed a button marked with a down arrow, and the carriage's flimsy-looking gate snapped shut.

A dark sharp came rushing towards them and slammed against the gate with a crash, and a pair of claws reached between the bars in the hopes of ripping apart anyone inside. Whatever the creature was, it's body was covered in suppurating boils and tumorous masses, and a steady stream of vile, foul-smelling liquid emerged from its mouth.

Kiven raised his rifle and fired off a shot, and when that failed to kill it, he fired again and again until the rifle's magazine was empty. The creature died with a hideous-sounding moan, and a second later the lift carriage lurched into motion with a loud screeching sound.

He only had a few seconds to examine its corpse before it passed out of sight, but what he saw was a rakghoul so grotesquely mutated that it was barely recognisable. The Handmaiden kept her face a mask, but Kiven could tell she was quite unnerved by what she'd seen.

"Master Dorak must have great courage to come to this place," she said.

"There are billions of planets in this galaxy on which he could hide, many of which are far more hospitable. Why would he come here? If he wanted to hide from the Sith, it'd far more sense to conceal himself amidst the teeming throngs of a world like Nar Shaddaa than a planet devoid of all sentient life. Something else must have drawn him here...guess we'll find out soon enough what it is."


End file.
